Fire Crews Contain 64,000-Acre Blaze in Northern California

Containment lines were completed Friday around a Northern California fire that charred 64,000 acres of forest and brush and destroyed more than 300 homes.

In Idaho, only a 10-mile gap was left in 127 miles of containment line around the nation’s largest blaze, a 257,600-acre fire 30 miles east of Boise.

Crews completed 135 miles of fire lines around the California blaze and the last of the 7,500 people forced to flee at the fire’s peak were allowed to return home, said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Sharon Wages.

Within the lines, the fire in Shasta County was 60% controlled but firefighters could not estimate when the blaze will be extinguished, she said. The blaze destroyed 307 houses in communities northeast of Redding.

Suppression costs reached $8.4 million. Authorities had eliminated all but arson as a probable cause.

Elsewhere in California, nearly 1,300 firefighters gained Friday on a blaze in the eastern Sierra Nevada that burned 8,700 acres of timber around the vacation center of Mammoth Lakes.

The 9-day-old fire was 80% contained, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Mike LeFevre.

The Mammoth Lakes Basin, a popular camping and fishing area, and the Mammoth Mountain Inn reopened Friday after being evacuated a week ago.