State rallies more fire help

As wildfires raged throughout Northern California on Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called up an additional 2,000 National Guard troops for duty on the front lines and officials confirmed a death in fire-stricken Butte County.

The body -- the first civilian fatality in the latest round of California fires -- was found in a blackened home that burned earlier this week near tiny Concow, according to Butte County sheriff’s officials.

The infusion of California National Guard troops is meant to bolster the exhausted personnel who have been battling hundreds of blazes for more than three weeks.

Training in phases over the summer, they will join 400 Guard troops who have already been deployed. “Everyone is working together -- local, state and federal agencies and we are even getting international help,” the governor said.

As many as 200 firefighters from Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Greece are expected this summer. Four huge air tankers have just arrived from Canada, joining a fleet of 31 planes and 108 helicopters.

In a news conference, Glen Cannon, an assistant administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the 1,700 lightning-sparked fires across the state were “unprecedented in size and number.”

About 300 are still uncontained, with some burning in areas so remote that they are not being fought.

“They have essentially exhausted all the internal resources within California,” Cannon said.

In Butte County, a 49,000-acre blaze destroyed as many as 50 homes earlier this week. By Friday afternoon, firefighters had the flames 55% contained.

“For us this is a tough day, knowing someone lost their life out here when we tried so hard to have that not happen,” said Capt. Julie Hutchinson of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Hutchinson said crews made progress Friday, despite high heat, thick smoke and low humidity.

Flames still roared on the far side of the Feather River from Paradise, a town of more than 30,000 recovering from a blaze that destroyed more than 75 homes a few weeks ago.

In Big Sur, firefighters were on the cusp of declaring victory along the coast, with plans to fully reopen Highway 1 to all traffic by Sunday.

The 113,000-acre blaze, the state’s biggest this season, is still burning in the remote east side of Los Padres National Forest. It was 41% contained Friday.

Greg DeNitto, a fire spokesman in Big Sur, said full containment is not expected until the end of the month.

If it burns all the way to the fire lines laid out by crews, the blaze will grow to about 250,000 acres, DeNitto said, making it one of the largest in state history.

As the fire spread east, the five Buddhist monks who stayed behind at the remote Tassajara Zen Mountain Center were resting Friday after successfully beating back the flames that swept down on the famed retreat a day earlier. Just three remote outbuildings were damaged.

In Goleta, firefighters continued corraling the 9,443-acre fire that just days ago threatened a wide swath of the city.

It was described by the Forest Service as 80% contained, burning chaparral in a mostly unpopulated area.

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eric.bailey@latimes.com

steve.chawkins@latimes.com