Firefighters struggling to contain destructive Northern California wildfires found themselves facing a new blaze that erupted yesterday and drove through a rural area near a national forest.
About 60 homes in an old ranching and farming area near Covelo, which is about 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of San Francisco, were ordered evacuated as the blaze erupted late in the afternoon.
Gusty winds quickly drove it through about a square mile of brush and grasslands, oak, pine and timber near Mendocino National Forest, Mendocino County Undersheriff Matthew Kendall said.
"We're advised that the fire was threatening structures," he said.
However, there were no immediate reports of homes being burned.
Firefighting aircraft were called in but it was unclear when they might arrive because many already were engaged in other fires, Kendall said.
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Some 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the south, twin fires straddling Mendocino and Lake counties have destroyed at least seven homes and threatened an estimated 12,000 more, fire officials said.
Jessyca Lytle fled a fast-moving Northern California wildfire in 2015 that spared her property but destroyed her mother's memorabilia-filled home in rural and rugged Lake County.
Less than three years later, Lytle found herself listening to scanner traffic yesterday and fire-proofing her mother's new home as another wildfire advanced.
"Honestly, what I'm thinking right now is I just want this to end," Lytle said, adding that she was "exhausted in every way possible physically, emotionally, all of that."
"I told them to throw everything they care about in the back of the car," said Lew, 45. "I grabbed computers, cellphones, papers. I just started bagging all my paperwork up, clothes, my guitars."