California Fires Threaten Condors, Cabins, Sequoias

Historic homesteader cabins near Yosemite National Park, a grove of ancient sequoias and a condor habitat in California were all threatened Wednesday as fires continued to rage across the Western states.

A 73,600-acre wildfire eating its way around Clear Lake, a vacation spot in Northern California near the Oregon border, still threatened at least one community and was just 30% contained.

Firefighters eliminated the danger to homes and other structures in seven of eight communities in the path of the 11-day-old fire by starving it of fuel between its front flanks and most of the buildings. Many of the 200 to 300 people evacuated from Clear Lake were allowed to return home Tuesday night.

More than 4,000 firefighters from as far away as Alaska and Alabama cleared lines around the flames.

Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt donned a flameproof suit to sweat alongside firefighters battling the Kaweah fire in Tulare County, where a stand of giant sequoias is threatened.

Elsewhere in California, flames sweeping through the Los Padres National Forest near San Luis Obispo blackened 100,000 acres and burned a cabin that biologists use to keep an eye on 17 zoo-hatched condors. None of the birds or researchers was hurt because the cabin was unoccupied at the time.