At least 400 homes and hundreds of other buildings have gone up in flames and one person has been killed in a Northern California wildfire that ranks as the most destructive this summer in the U.S. West, officials said on Monday.
The so-called Valley Fire, which erupted Saturday afternoon and spread quickly to a cluster of small communities in the hills and valleys north of the Napa County's wine-producing region, has also displaced thousands of residents under expanded evacuations.
By Monday morning the blaze had devoured about 61,000 acres (24,690 hectares) of tinder-dry forests, brush and grasslands, and was only about 5 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
About 40,000 acres (16,190 hectares) of the landscape were consumed in the first 12 hours of the fire at the peak of its intensity on Saturday and early Sunday, stoked by high winds.
Fire officials described the rapid initial rate of spread as nearly unprecedented, a consequence of vegetation desiccated by four years of drought and weeks of extreme summer heat.
Four firefighters were hospitalized with second-degree burns in the early hours of the blaze on Saturday.
One civilian fire fatality was confirmed on Monday by Lake County Sheriff's spokesman Lieutenant Steve Brooks. But Brooks gave no details about the circumstances or the victim's identity.
Cal Fire field battalion chief Mike Smith said the blaze was still progressing, though its intensity was diminished by a weather phenomenon known as an inversion layer that had settled over the area.
Still, efforts to combat the blaze remained hampered by thick smoke which has grounded water-dropping helicopters and airplane tankers, he said. More than 1,400 firefighters have been assigned to the blaze.
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