REDDING, Calif. — Evacuations were ordered Thursday in a Northern California community as a new wildfire spread, authorities said.
The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office issued a mandatory evacuation order because of the Fawn Fire burning in the unincorporated Mountain Gate area north of the city of Redding at the far north end of the Central Valley.
Residents were told to temporarily gather in a parking lot at Shasta College in Redding. The number of residents affected was not immediately known. People living in other areas were warned to be prepared to leave. Some 2,000 structures were threatened.
The fire has grown to nearly 2 square miles since it started Wednesday afternoon and was just 5 percent contained. The fire was burning in heavy timber on steep, rugged terrain amid hot, dry and gusty conditions.
Statewide, more than 9,000 firefighters remained assigned to 10 large, active wildfires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
California fires have burned 3,671 square miles this year, destroying more than 3,200 homes, commercial properties and other structures.
Those fires include two big forest blazes growing in the heart of California’s giant sequoia country on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Smoke from those fires raised air quality concerns for the southern end of the Central Valley and flowed over greater Los Angeles, causing mistaken reports of mountain fires.
On Wednesday, officials showed reporters how Sequoia National Park’s famous Giant Forest has been protected from the KNP Complex fire by years of using carefully set and controlled fires to burn away vegetation that can serve as wildfire fuel.
