Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
A wildfire in Northern California erupted explosively Thursday night, jumped the Sacramento River and killed a bulldozer driver, authorities said. Meanwhile, more than 3,000 people had been evacuated as an intentionally set wildfire so powerful that it created its own weather system raced through dry Southern California mountain land.
California Gov. Jerry Brown declared states of emergency in Shasta County in the north and Riverside County in the south as the Carr and Cranston fires forced evacuations and burned homes.
The Carr Fire burgeoned to more than 28,700 acres in Shasta County amid intense heat, expanding so quickly that it wiped out the progress firefighters had made since it began on Monday and was licking at the edges of Redding, a city of 92,000 people.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, said that despite the efforts of more than 1,700 firefighters, containment of the fire dropped from 10 percent to 6 percent on Thursday.
The agency confirmed late Thursday that a private bulldozer operator working the fire was killed. It gave no further details. It added that 15 structures had been destroyed and that five others had been damaged.
Pacific Gas and Electric said 1,830 customers were without power in Redding late Thursday.
Scott McLean, a spokesman for crews fighting the Carr Fire, said the blaze was “taking everything down in its path.” McLean told NBC Bay Area that an unknown number of firefighters and civilians were being treated for burns.
Mercy Medical Center told NBC affiliate KNVN that it was on high alert and confirmed that it was treating several burn victims in its emergency room. The hospital said it was preparing to move babies and intensive-care patients late Thursday.
Evacuations were ordered for several parts of Redding. An evacuation center at a local high school was forced to shut down and move to Shasta College.
“The fire’s creeping real, real close to some residences up here, so we’re going through doing door-to-door evacuations,” Sgt. Tim Hinkson of the state Highway Patrol’s Redding unit said in a Facebook video post.
“The fire is picking up again with these high winds, and the unpredictability of how the wind is going to blow this is just crazy,” Hinkson said. “It’s out of control.”
In Riverside County, the so-called Cranston Fire grew to 7,500 acres after an arsonist set it ablaze about noon Wednesday (3 p.m. ET) in the San Jacinto Mountains in San Bernardino National Forest, east of Los Angeles, Cal Fire said. About 3,200 residents were evacuated from more than 2,100 homes, and about 600 more homes were in immediate danger in harshly hot, dry conditions, authorities said.
The fire sent up a cloud of smoke so enormous that it created its own weather system, dotting the area with lightning, the National Weather Service said.
Brandon N. McGlover, 32, of Temecula, south of Los Angeles, was being held Thursday in the Cois M. Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta on suspicion of five counts of arson to wildland in connection with the Cranston Fire and an unspecified number of other fires, the National Park Service said. Jail records listed no attorney who could comment in McGlover’s behalf.
A joint local-state-federal incident command team said the fire was only 5 percent contained Thursday night. At least two highways and numerous campgrounds and trails were closed off as almost 700 firefighters attacked the blaze, it said.
“We were all peeling out of there as fast as we could. It was apocalyptic,” William Blodgett of Idyllwild, a town of about 12,000 people that was under the most immediate threat, told NBC Los Angeles.
The local air quality management district issued a smoke advisory through Friday morning, warning of unhealthy levels of smoke and ash.
No injuries have been reported.