GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) – After four years of homelessness, Kesia Studebaker thought she had finally landed on her feet when she found a job cooking in a diner and moved into a house in Greenville.
She had been renting for three months and was hoping stability would help her win back custody of her 14-year-old daughter. But in just one night, a raging wildfire tore through the mountain town and “took it all away,” she said.
Fueled by strong winds and bone-dry vegetation, the Dixie Fire grew to become the largest single wildfire in state history. People living in the scenic forestlands of Northern California are facing a weekend of fear as it threatens to reduce thousands of homes to ashes.
“We knew we didn’t get enough rainfall and fires could happen, but we didn’t expect a monster like this,” Studebaker said Saturday.
The fire incinerated much of Greenville on Wednesday and Thursday, destroying 268 homes and structures and threatening nearly 14,000 buildings in the northern Sierra Nevada. It had engulfed an area larger than the size of New York City.