“I guarantee you there were firefighters in Greenville,” Opliger said. “My heart is crushed by what has occurred there, and to the folks that have lost residences and businesses - I’ve met some of them already - their life is now forever changed and all I can tell you is I’m sorry.”Īt the same news conference, Rocky Opliger, a Cal Fire incident commander, addressed a rumor that firefighters were not in Greenville when the fire swept into town. “Despite efforts of firefighters, aerial resources and law enforcement, the fire spread into the community of Greenville and caused mass destruction,” Johns said at a news conference Thursday evening. Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns, a life-long resident of Greenville, said there are more than 100 homes in the town. 4: A vehicle consumed by flames burns as the Dixie Fire devastates the Plumas County town of Greenville, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. Officials have not yet released a total damage assessment for Greenville. There’s no amount of water that can stop it,” Day said. “When it gets that big, we just gotta get out of the way. Within an hour, they had been set back about 12 miles south all the way to the town of Crescent Mills. But then the winds reversed, sending the flames downhill toward town - fast.Īs the fire marched forward, crews were forced away from the town center. Swirling tunnels of smoke started billowing above the fire as the winds picked up.

4: The Dixie Fire destroys a home in the Plumas County town of Greenville, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. All day, the fire lingered atop the hills behind Greenville as crews prepared to defend structures down below, tying in the line and forming dozer tracks. The original assignment Wednesday, he said, was to help form a contingency crew in case intense winds unexpectedly sent the fire toward the town. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)įor Day and his San Diego County-based crew, the firefight in Greenville was the final stop after two weeks working to contain the Dixie Fire along its eastern front. 4: The Dixie Fire destroys buildings in the Plumas County town of Greenville, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. “It happened quickly,” the deputy said, gesturing toward the town.

A lone Plumas Sheriff’s Office deputy shone a flashlight up into the trees off of Main Street, illuminating a sagging utility pole. The highway was almost entirely deserted as some fire crews were relieved and others lingered to protect the town’s remaining buildings near downtown. A chimney rose up where an inn used to stand near the town’s Main Street, a streetlight had melted sideways like a candy cane. Highway 89 was a hellish strip Wednesday night as homes burned to their skeletons, trees choked with flames, and businesses were charred beyond recognition. The fire now covers an area the size of the city of Los Angeles. By Thursday morning, it had grown by 50,000 acres. In Greenville, the leveling of the downtown area marked a significant shift in the Dixie Fire’s reach into populated communities. The River Fire is particularly worrisome, some fire experts said, because it is in an area that has not burned in more than 100 years and is significantly vegetated with many homes. Once the fire started, it was a recipe for rapid-fire growth.” “We’ve had drought conditions,” said Jim Hudson, a deputy chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit. It is one of a dozen fires currently raging across the state, fueled by high winds and an excess of dry vegetation in the state’s drought-stricken wildlands.Ībout 100 miles south of Greenville, in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Colfax, another fire that broke out Wednesday had grown to 2,600 acres by Thursday evening, prompting the evacuation of nearly 10,000 residents. The fire - now the sixth-largest in California history - had scorched more than 361,000 acres across Plumas and Butte counties by Thursday and was just 35% contained.

“I just stood there for a moment and let it set in. Jeremy Day, whose crew battled the flames in and around Greenville overnight. By midnight, the mountain town was ravaged, most of its historic downtown reduced to ashes in what was likely the single most destructive night since the wildfire broke out three weeks ago.

GREENVILLE - They didn’t expect Greenville to burn so fast.Ĭrews fighting California’s largest wildfire of the season had been working for days to protect the town of about 1,100, trying to stay ahead of fast, dry winds that threatened to drive the already vast Dixie Fire deeper into the northern Sierra.īut then the winds came.

Greenville ca dixie fire