GRIZZLY FLATS, Calif. • Wind-driven wildfires raged Wednesday through drought-stricken forests in the mountains of Northern California after incinerating hundreds of homes and forcing thousands of people to flee to safety.

A reversal of wind direction was expected to test some previously quiet fire containment lines, but also push flames back in other areas, authorities said.

The newest inferno, the Caldor fire, continued to grow explosively in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe, covering 84 square miles after suddenly ravaging Grizzly Flats, a community of about 1,200.

At least 50 homes burned there but tallies were incomplete because officials had not been able to make thorough assessments of the damage in Grizzly Flats. Two people were hospitalized with serious injuries on Tuesday and about 5,900 homes and other structures were threatened by the fire.

In the Sierra-Cascades region about 100 miles to the north, the month-old Dixie fire expanded by thousands of acres to 993 square miles — two weeks after the blaze gutted the Gold Rush-era town of Greenville. About 16,000 homes and buildings were threatened by the Dixie Fire, named for the road where it started.

“It’s a pretty good size monster,” Mark Brunton, a firefighting operations section chief, said in a briefing.

“We’re not going to get this thing overnight,” he said. “It’s going to be a work in progress — eating the elephant one bite at a time kind of thing — and it’s going to be a long-haul mindset. It’s a marathon and not a sprint.”

The Caldor and Dixie fires are among a dozen large wildfires in the northern half of California. In contrast, Southern California has had few wildfires recently. Very moist ocean air even ushered in occasional drizzle or light rain on Wednesday.

But Northern California’s wildfires have left scenes of utter devastation.

Few homes were left standing in Grizzly Flats, where streets were littered with downed power lines and poles. Houses were reduced to smoldering ash and twisted metal with only chimneys rising above the ruins. A post office and elementary school were destroyed.

Seen in a long exposure photograph, embers light up hillsides as the Dixie fire burns Tuesday near Milford in Lassen County, Calif.

the associated press