Sept. 3, 2025:
TUOLUMNE COUNTY, Calif. (AP) — One of nearly two dozen fires burning across Northern California on Wednesday (Sept. 3, 2025) scorched homes in a Gold Rush town settled in the 1850s by thousands of Chinese miners driven out of a nearby camp.
The quick-moving fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills threatened the few remaining historic structures in Chinese Camp, forced the evacuation of its roughly 100 residents and closed a highway that’s a main route between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.
It’s not clear yet whether any of the town’s handful of Gold Rush era structures — including a post office and a Roman Catholic church — were damaged in the fire that erupted Tuesday and continued burning without any containment.
A large number of lightning strikes early Tuesday set off at least 22 fires that have burned more than 19 square miles (50 square kilometers) in Calaveras, Tuolumne and Stanislaus counties, said Emily Kilgore, a spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the state’s chief fire agency.
The fires are spread across the region about 120 miles (190 kilometers) east of San Francisco. There have been no reports of injuries, but several structures were destroyed in two of the fires, Kilgore said Wednesday. Damage assessments have not been completed.
Many of the fires are in remote and rugged areas, some with very difficult access, Kilgore said.
“There still may be fires that haven’t been discovered yet,” Kilgore said, warning that more evacuations may be necessary. Temperatures were expected to be in the 90s over the next few days with little rain in sight.
The largest of the fires has burned about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers) and is centered around Chinese Camp, where at least five homes burned in the town with a mix of freestanding and mobile homes.
Outside one house Tuesday night, seven people moved large tree branches away and shoveled sand onto the fire in a desperate attempt to keep the blaze from spreading from a house next door until firefighters arrived. A recreational vehicle on the property was damaged.
Chinese Camp, now a pass-through for tourists traveling to Yosemite, flourished in the 1850s as a stagecoach stop and supply hub for mining camps during the Gold Rush.
Thousands of Chinese came to California during the Gold Rush and faced persecution that included an exorbitant Foreign Miners Tax designed to drive them away from mining.
The town grew as Chinese miners who were driven out of a nearby camp arrived, according to Visit Tuolumne County. Originally called Camp Washington, its name was soon changed to reflect the thousands of people from China who settled there.
Aug. 27, 2025:
NAPA COUNTY, Calif. (AP) — Thousands of homes are under evacuation orders and warnings because of wildfires in Northern California wine country. Firefighters backed by helicopters were working Sunday to try to contain the blazes amid dry, hot weather. Cal Fire says the Pickett Fire in Napa County north of San Francisco has grown to more than 10 square miles (25 square kilometers) and was 11% contained.
Aug. 25, 2025:
UNDATED-AP- Thousands of homes in Northern California wine country and central Oregon were under evacuation orders and warnings Sunday as firefighting crews battled wildfires in dry, hot weather.
The Pickett Fire, which had charred about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers) of Napa County, was just 11% contained by Sunday evening (Aug. 24, 2025), according to the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
About 150 people were ordered to leave their homes, while another 360 were under evacuation warnings as the fire threatened 500 structures near Aetna Springs and Pope Valley, 80 miles (127 kilometers) north of San Francisco, said Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay. Some evacuation orders were later lifted.
In Oregon, the 29-square-mile (75-square-kilometer) Flat Fire in Deschutes and Jefferson counties had about 4,000 homes under various levels of evacuation notice, including 1,000 with orders to leave immediately, according to the state Fire Marshal’s Office.
Firefighters were able to cut containment lines and continued to suppress fires in some residential areas. However, they faced significant challenges with difficult terrain, low humidity and triple-digit temperatures in some areas, officials said.
Some homes have burned, and officials said they were working to confirm the status of structures.
More than 1,230 firefighters backed by 10 helicopters were battling the California fire, which began in a remote area Thursday after a week of hot weather. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Residents of the western United States have been sweltering in a heat wave that hospitalized some people, with temperatures hitting dangerous levels throughout the weekend in Washington, Oregon, Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.
Clay said the weather has moderated since the California fire began, with Sunday’s high about 94 Fahrenheit (34 Celsius). But humidity levels were expected to drop with increasing winds later in the day.
“That’s been a driving factor in the afternoons since we’ve seen the fire activity pick up for the last three days,” Clay said, adding that “support from all up and down California has been critical to our efforts.”
The Pickett Fire began in the same area as the much larger Glass Fire in 2020, which crossed into Sonoma County and eventually burned about 105 square miles (272 square kilometers) and more than 1,500 structures.
The 2020 blaze was driven by wind, while the current conflagration is fueled mainly by dry vegetation on steep slopes — some of it dead and downed trees left over from the Glass Fire and some of it grass and brush that grew back and then dried out again, said Clay.
The area of the Oregon fire is in a high desert climate, where dried grasses and juniper trees are burning and fire is racing through canyon areas where it’s challenging to create containment lines, said Jason Carr, Deschutes County sheriff’s spokesman.
The fire began Thursday night and grew quickly amid hot, gusty conditions. Fire officials were keeping an eye on isolated thunderstorms in southern Oregon that could drift north on Sunday, state Fire Marshals spokesman Chris Schimmer said in a video posted to Facebook.
“If we get thunderstorms that roll through, it can … cause the fire to jump (containment) lines,” said Carr, adding the downdrafts can push fire in multiple directions.
In central California, the state’s largest blaze this year, the Gifford Fire, was at 95% containment Sunday after charring nearly 206 square miles (534 square kilometers) of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties since erupting on Aug. 1. The cause is under investigation.
Although it’s difficult to directly tie a single fire or weather event directly to climate change, scientists say human-caused warming from burning fossil fuels like coal
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