Local News

STOCKTON (CBS 5 / AP) ― Hot, dry winds fanned fires across Northern California on Tuesday, destroying 32 homes in a Stockton neighborhood, endangered hundreds of others and leaving a fire captain with severe burns.

The fires were concentrated in areas north and south of the state capital, while separate blazes burned near the coast in Monterey and Sonoma counties, and yet another blaze briefly threatened homes in the East Bay's Hayward hills.

"The winds are just howling," said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant. "That's what makes it so challenging."

A steady north wind was gusting up to 40 mph through California's Central Valley, said Jason Clapp, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. He said the relative humidity was 15 percent and threatened to drop to single digits.

Four separate fires that ignited along Interstate 5 in Stockton quickly blew out of control. High wind spread the embers quickly, while thick smoke slowed freeway traffic.

The fires damaged or destroyed 32 homes, said Connie Cochran, a spokeswoman for the Central Valley industrial city about 50 miles south of the state capital.

Another 25 homes were scorched or suffered other damage, such as burned fences. The suburban neighborhood is made up mostly of three-bedroom homes built in the 1970s, some with their original wood-shake roofs, which are highly prone to fire.

Stockton officials called it the "largest residential fire loss in city history."

Two firefighters were treated for minor injuries in the Stockton blazes. Ambulances also treated some residents for smoke inhalation, but no one had been taken to a hospital, authorities said.

There was no immediate cause for the Stockton fires, which started in grass and brush along the interstate shortly before 11 a.m.

In Palermo, a town of about 5,000 residents about 60 miles north of Sacramento, a 1,200-acre wildfire had destroyed 21 homes and about 30 other structures by Tuesday evening, said Joshpae White, a spokesman for the state fire agency.

The Butte County community south of Oroville was evacuated temporarily while at least 350 firefighters fought to protect homes.

"It's moving so quickly and we're trying to get ahold of it. We're just trying to get people out of there," White said. "Wind is our main enemy right now."

The fire had moved through the town and into more rural areas by early evening. Some residents were allowed to return to their homes as the fire danger passed, he said.

About 50 residents were spending the night at an evacuation center established at Oroville's Church of the Nazarene, church secretary Tina Brandt said.

In a blaze just south of Sacramento, a fire captain was hospitalized with severe burns after a grass fire unexpectedly changed direction and became more intense.

The Sacramento Metro Fire Department said the captain was heavily sedated in the University of California, Davis Regional Burn Center with third-degree burns to his hands and second-degree burns to his arms.

Second-degree burns cause blistering or peeling of the skin, while third-degree burns include skin charring.

The captain and two members of his engine crew were protecting a mobile home from the 1,000-acre grass fire in a rural area south of Sacramento. The captain was caught when the wind and flames suddenly shifted direction. The two crew members were able to get inside the cab and escaped injury, officials said.

"We have extreme fire conditions driven by high wind and dry humidity," said another Sacramento fire captain, Jeff Lynch.

The mobile home and several outbuildings burned, but the fire's progress had been stopped by late afternoon.

Other fires burning in Northern California on Tuesday included:

- A grass fire that charred 10 acres of hillside in the residential area above Cal State East Bay in Hayward. It briefly threatened homes before firefighters extinguished it.

- A blaze east of Orland in Glenn County, which is northwest of Sacramento, that destroyed three homes and a business. Highway 32 was closed temporarily.

- A 200-acre fire along Geysers Road near Cloverdale in southern Sonoma County.

- A 200-acre fire near Highway 132 in Tuolumne County.
 
- A fire that scorched an estimated 30 acres of grass just outside Martinez in Contra Costa County. It was declared contained by late afternoon.

- A 100-acre fire near El Dorado Hills in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento.

- A fire in the Los Padres National Forest in Monterey County that had grown to 1,200 acres. It was burning in steep, rocky terrain of the Ventana Wilderness about 21 miles west of King City.

Grass, brush and trees are in matchstick condition across California after the driest March, April and May on record.

The unusually severe and early fire season began with a wildfire last month that scorched more than 4,200 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It destroyed at least three dozen homes between Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, about 15 miles south of San Jose.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)