GREENVILLE, Calif. — A 3-week-old wildfire engulfed a tiny Northern California mountain town, leveling most of its historic downtown and leaving blocks of homes in ashes, while a new wind-whipped blaze destroyed homes as crews braced for another explosive run of flames Thursday amid dangerous weather.
The Dixie Fire, swollen by bone-dry vegetation and 40 mph gusts, raged through the northern Sierra Nevada community of Greenville on Wednesday evening. A gas station, church, hotel, museum and bar were among fixtures gutted in the town dating to California’s Gold Rush era that had some wooden buildings more than 100 years old.
The fire “burnt down our entire downtown. Our historical buildings, families homes, small businesses, and our children’s schools are completely lost,” Plumas County Supervisor Kevin Goss wrote on Facebook.
“We lost Greenville tonight,” U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents the area, said in an emotional Facebook video. “There’s just no words.”
As the fire’s north and eastern sides exploded Wednesday, the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office issued an urgent warning online to the town’s approximately 800 residents: “You are in imminent danger and you MUST leave now!”
A similar warning was issued Thursday for residents of another tiny mountain community, Taylorsville, as flames pushed toward the southeast.
To the northwest, crews were protecting homes in the town of Chester. Residents there were among thousands under evacuation orders or warnings in several counties, but no injuries or deaths were immediately reported.
Margaret Elysia Garcia, an artist and writer who has been in Southern California waiting out the fire, watched video of her downtown Greenville office in flames. The office contained every journal she’s written in since second grade and a hand edit of a novel on top of her grandfather’s roll-top desk.
“We’re in shock. It’s not that we didn’t think this could happen to us,” she said. “At the same time, it took our whole town.”
Firefighters on Wednesday had to deal with people reluctant to leave. Their refusals meant that firefighters spent precious time loading people into cars to ferry them out, said Jake Cagle, an incident management operations section chief.
“We have firefighters that are getting guns pulled out on them, because people don’t want to evacuate,” he said.
The blaze that broke out July 21 is the largest burning in California and had blackened over 504 square miles, an area larger than Los Angeles. The cause was under investigation but Pacific Gas &Electric has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of its power lines.
The fire was near the town of Paradise, which largely was destroyed in a 2018 wildfire that became the nation’s deadliest in at least a century and was blamed on PG&E equipment.
Ken Donnell left Greenville on Wednesday, thinking he’d be right back after a quick errand a few towns over, but couldn’t return as the flames swept through.
All he has now are the clothes on his back and his old pickup truck, he said. He’s pretty sure his office and house, with a bag he had prepared for evacuation, is gone.