PULGA, Calif. -- A California fire churned through unpopulated mountain wilderness Thursday, but posed no immediate threat to the nearby town of Paradise, site of the deadliest wildfire in recent U.S. history. Still, survivors of the 2018 blaze worried that history could repeat itself.
The Dixie Fire has burned 3.5 square miles of brush and timber near the Feather River Canyon area of Butte County northeast of Paradise and moved into national forest land in neighboring Plumas County.
There was zero containment,and officials kept in place a warning for residents of the tiny communities of Pulga and Concow to be ready to leave.
In its early hours, the fire raced along steep, hard-to-reach terrain about 10 miles from Paradise, the foothill town that was virtually incinerated by the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people. The current fire, which started in the rugged Feather River Valley northeast of Paradise, has not advanced toward the town, and residents have not been ordered to evacuate.
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Larry Peterson, whose home in neighboring Magalia survived the previous blaze, said some of his neighbors were getting their belongings together in case they had to flee.
"Anytime you've got a fire after what we went through, and another one is coming up, you've got to be concerned," he told KHSL-TV.
Other locals stocked up on water and other items.
"We pretty much left with our clothes on our backs" during the previous fire, said Jennifer Younie of Paradise. "So this time we are looking to be more prepared and more vigilant."
Because little of the foliage has grown back in the area since the 2018 Paradise blaze, there is nothing there now for the current fire to burn, Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly told the Sacramento Bee.
"It's probably not a direct threat at this time," he said.
The blaze is one of nearly 70 active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through about 1,562 square miles -- a combined area larger than Rhode Island -- in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
In southern Oregon, the Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., covered more than 355 square miles early Thursday after a day of explosive growth. Twenty-one homes have been destroyed and another 1,900 remained threatened in the Fremont-Winema National Forest area just north of California that's been gripped by a historic drought.
The nearby Log Fire ballooned to more than 7.5 square miles as winds pushed the flames.
Tim and Dee McCarley could see trees exploding into flames in their rearview mirror as they fled the fire last week at the last minute. They had put off their departure to pack more belongings and search for their cat.
"The sheriff's department had been there and they said, 'If you don't get out of here now, then you are going to die,'" said Tim McCarley, 67.
Information for this article was contributed by Sara Cline, Gillian Flaccus and Chris Grygiel of The Associated Press.