www.yahoo.com/news/californias-dixie-fire-explodes-size-1... USA Today, August 6, 2021 California's Dixie Fire explodes in size, grows into nation's largest wildfire By Doyle Rice California's Dixie Fire exploded in size overnight and is now the nation's largest wildfire, officials said Friday. The fire, which obliterated much of the small town of Greenville, California, on Wednesday, grew by 110 square miles overnight and is now 676 square miles in size. That's an area about one-third the size of Rhode Island. It's also now the third-largest wildfire in California history and is only 35% contained. Fortunately, better weather conditions were expected to aid the fight against the blaze on Friday. As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California on Wednesday and Thursday, the fire raged through Greenville, a Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old. Sheriff Todd Johns, who said he was a lifelong Greenville resident, said more than 100 homes were destroyed in the Greenville and Indian Falls areas. "To the folks that have lost residences and businesses," Johns said, "their life is now forever changed. And all I can tell you is I’m sorry." 'Catastrophically destroyed': Dixie Fire wipes out California gold rush town of Greenville Dan Kearns, a volunteer firefighter, said the winds came up strong Wednesday afternoon and blew the Dixie Fire into town under the type of deadly conditions that have in recent years caused widespread damage in California communities, including Paradise, Redding and Shasta County. "I'm not going to say total (destruction) because not every structure is gone. But the town is catastrophically destroyed," Kearns said.