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Firefighters Struggle As Residents Frantically Flee

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The Associated Press

Published: July 10, 2008

OROVILLE, Calif. - For Clay and Nancy Henphill, running from raging wildfires has become a familiar routine.

For the second time in about two weeks, they were forced to evacuate their home after fire officials ordered 10,000 people in the Sierra Nevada foothills to flee ahead of a wind-whipped blaze, one of about 40 lightning-sparked wildfires that have charred more than 76 square miles over the past two weeks.

The Henphills awoke to blaring sirens around 1 a.m. Tuesday and were told to leave immediately. Only a week earlier, they had returned to their home in Concow, a rural community about 90 miles north of Sacramento, after spending a week at a shelter.

"They were running sirens all down through there. We started tossing a few things in the car. A fireman said, 'Get out of here quick,'" Clay Henphill, 59, said Wednesday. "We all came out in a long line of cars, with firetrucks going in as we were going out."

The couple grabbed clothes, medicine, camping gear and their dog and jumped into their car. They spent Tuesday night in a tent outside an emergency shelter in Oroville.

"You almost feel like somebody is out to get you," said Nancy Henphill, 61.

By Wednesday, the lightning-sparked wildfire had destroyed at least 40 homes, mostly in Concow, and threatened nearly 4,000 others in the nearby city of Paradise and other neighboring communities. A separate wildfire destroyed 74 homes in Paradise last month.

The latest blaze flared up early Tuesday after erratic winds blew embers across fire-containment lines. The fire was burning across the Feather River from Paradise, where thousands of homes could burn if the blaze jumps the river.
Firefighting crews struggled against a sudden drop in humidity and a 10-degree spike in temperature brought by a heat wave.

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