Fire Crews Struggle to Control 5,500-Acre Blaze : Destruction: High temperatures hamper effort as flames claim 15 buildings in Mother Lode country.

A wildfire raged out of control after blackening more than 5,500 acres in the Mother Lode country about 60 miles southeast of Sacramento on Tuesday as four other blazes continued to burn in Monterey, San Diego and Contra Costa counties.

Thousands of firefighters struggled through dense timber and brush to battle the fires in steep, rugged terrain as temperatures in much of the state continued to top 100.

The most destructive of the blazes was the Gold Rush region fire that had destroyed 15 structures and driven more than 2,000 people from their homes since it broke out Sunday night about three miles east of San Andreas in the foothills of Calaveras County.

Whipped by gusting winds, the Calaveras fire spread rapidly through stands of pine, oak and chaparral parched by six years of drought, overrunning the tiny community of Fricot City and marching steadily toward the remote towns of Murphys and Sheep Ranch.

The blaze had moved to within a mile of Sheep Ranch by late Tuesday afternoon. Aerial tankers made water drops and ground crews cut fuel breaks in front of the town in a determined struggle to stop the advancing flames.

Authorities evacuated about 2,000 people from the towns of Sheep Ranch, Murphys and Avery Tuesday night.

Late Tuesday, fires were burning on the other side of a ridge less than a mile away from Murphys, a Gold Rush-era tourist community.

Gilbert Lusher, whose pizza parlor was one of the few businesses remaining open on Murphys’ otherwise deserted main street, continued to serve pizzas and salads to firefighters even after Calaveras County sheriff’s deputies told him to evacuate the building.

“I got food to cook,” he said. “People are hungry. What are you gonna do?”

After learning of the fire, Charles and Ruth Coale rushed from their home in Portola Valley to their weekend home in Murphys, but they arrived too late to save anything from the house, which was on a 72-acre parcel outside town.

“It’s very sad,” said Ruth Coale. “We had the sweetest little house.”

A pall of smoke hung over Sheep Ranch in midafternoon as soot and ashes rained down on the tattered little post office and modern fire station--two of the few structures at the center of what once was a Gold Rush boom town.

Jerry Geissler, a fire boss with the state Department of Forestry, said the humidity was so low--less than 10%--and temperatures were so high--about 100 degrees--that the 2,300 firefighters were unable to battle the fire at close range.

“Burning conditions are as severe as they can get,” he said.

As night fell, firefighters appeared to have the upper hand, but officials said a shift in the wind could change everything.

“It all depends on the wind,” said Bill Johnson, a member of the Sheep Ranch Volunteer Fire Department. “It could take days (to control the fire),” he said. “It all depends on how lucky they are.”

Witnesses said the Calaveras fire, which apparently started when the hot exhaust from a car ignited some grass, swept through Fricot City in less than a minute, destroying an old mansion and outbuildings that once served as a California Youth Authority detention center.

Resident Nancy Roberts said she was lucky. An earlier blaze had consumed all the brush around her house near Fricot City, and with no fuel to burn, the big fire bypassed her.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” she said. “You have no idea what it does to your gut to know your house might go.”

Diane Mann threw a last few belongings into her car Tuesday before heeding fire officials’ warnings and leaving her house near Sheep Ranch.

She paused for a second to stare at the cloud of smoke from the advancing fire.

“It just keeps going and going and going,” she said.

Mann was staying with relatives, but many of the other evacuees took refuge at Brett Harte High School in Altaville, about 12 miles south of Sheep Ranch.

The school is not air conditioned and many spent the night outside because of the heat.

“Some of them are sleeping under trees, on the grass in the park,” said Elizabeth Quirk, a local Red Cross official.

Meanwhile, in Monterey County, two fires burned out of control Tuesday afternoon.

One, which started about 4 a.m. Tuesday, moved rapidly through stands of large timber near Big Sur, briefly threatening the Ventana Inn and prompting the evacuation of visitors at Big Sur State Park.

By late afternoon, the flames had turned away from homes in Big Sur and were moving into the forested slopes east of town. By nightfall, the blaze had consumed about 250 acres. Fire officials said the fire was 20% contained.

About 15 miles to the east, a fire burned slowly west into remote backcountry after consuming about 350 acres of brush and trees in the northwest corner of the Army’s Ft. Hunter Liggett Military Reservation.

Reyola Carlisle, a civilian spokeswoman for the Army, said the blaze started about 5:30 p.m. Monday in a training area northwest of the San Antonio Mission. The cause of the fire was not immediately determined, she said.

Carlisle said Army and Forest Service crews faced a stiff fight to control the blaze.

“It’s hot, the humidity is low and there’s lots of wind,” she said.

In northeast San Diego County, firefighters reported 60% containment of a blaze that had burned more than 750 acres of brush in Wildcat Canyon on the Barona Indian Reservation. Elsewhere in California, mop-up operations continued late Tuesday on a fire that burned 450 acres of brushland on the slopes of Mt. Diablo, about 30 miles east of San Francisco.

Morain reported from Calaveras County and Malnic reported from Los Angeles.

California Wildfires

A spate of wildfires threatened a number of communities in California on Tuesday. The most serious raged through more than 5,500 acres in Calaveras County, coming within a mile of the Sierra Nevada towns of Mountain Ranch and Sheep Ranch. Other blazes were reported near Big Sur and in the northwest corner of the Ft . Hunter Liggett military reservation.