Hundreds of thousands of nails are scattered on the ground of what used to be the town of Greenville.
That and the tall stone chimneys where there used to be homes are all that remains of this town after the Dixie Pass, which since Sunday has become the second largest fire in California history.
In one of the main streets a metal bathtub is seen, naked and surrounded by ash of what were the personal belongings of a family.
The destruction of Greenville, which dates back to the gold rush of the mid-nineteenth century, seems more than a product of flames, caused by a bombing.
More information
Images of the destruction of Greenville
Fires devour the Mediterranean
Extreme heat and thick smoke surround Athens
The history of the town has been consumed by Dixie, a fire that has devastated 187,000 hectares in 25 days in four northeastern California counties: Plumas, Butte, Tehama and Lassen.
It has become the most voracious of the fire season.
Only the August Complex Fire, in August 2020, outnumbers Dixie.
It burned more than 417,000 hectares and it took almost three months to contain it 100%.
Many fear that this is the fate of this fire, whose approach is very complex for firefighters, as it has advanced, depending on the winds, at the rate of 6,000 hectares per night.
An American flag was placed over the remains of one of the houses.
Luis Pablo Beauregard
Authorities are still trying to figure out what started the fire. The big suspect is Pacific Gas and Electric Co (PG&E), the largest energy company in the state, with more than five million customers. It is believed that the fall of a tree on one of the lines could have caused the spark that started the fire in a place severely affected by drought, with vegetation with humidity levels of 3%. A few weeks ago, PG&E announced that it plans to bury 16,000 kilometers of power lines, 10% of its total network, to reduce the risk of fires.
In Greenville, a plaque almost intact from fire at the corner of Main Street and State Highway 89 indicates that, in the 1870s, this was the shop where the hundreds of pioneers who came to the region to work in the mines. "The building burned down in 1881, but was immediately replaced by the brick building that stands today," the plaque reads. The bricks of the building are scattered several meters in front of the facade of what was the Way Station, a restaurant.
On the opposite corner, the same fate ran one of the largest buildings in this district of just over 800 people.
It was a three-story building, one of the few made of stone and not wood, that housed a small hotel and a cafeteria.
Only one wall of partitions was left standing.
The rest of the building was broken into large rubble.
A twisted Pioneer Cafe marquee hung on the wall, the same one that graced the building for decades, according to 1940s images taken by photographer Jervie Henry Eastman and preserved in the archives of the University of California at Davis.
The remains of what was once a fuel station.
Luis Pablo Beauregard
This area of California began to be populated in 1850 when rumors spread that there was a lake full of gold, attracting thousands of prospectors to an area called the canyon of the Spanish. Nobody found it, but there were deposits that were exploited until 1852. Afterwards, many stayed working in the mines in the area, which was originally the territory of the Maidu Indian tribe. One of Greenville's attractions was its well-preserved early 20th century wooden buildings. All of that is gone today. One of the most talked about mysteries in recent days is how the fire left a modern supermarket chain intact. “The fire came like a flamethrower ... much of the town is flat. The Dollar General is still standing, I can't believe it, ”merchant Kevin Goss told reporters.
In this town 200 miles north of Sacramento, the state capital, everything that constitutes the core of rural American life has been erased. Scrap shelves are dumped on the floor of what was once the post office. In the public library the columns of the shelves make a mess with the cellulose of the paper. The elegant street lamps on the main street are broken in half. There is no trace of the sheriff's office and it is only known where the fire station was because someone, among the 5,800 workers who have come from all over the country to fight this fire monster, left a United States flag on the remains. charred from the truck. Blue and red and white stripes are Greenville's only color.
A delicate layer of ash rains on the remains of the town, further clouding the environment.
Visibility is zero over 100 meters.
In the town, in addition to the cawing of solitary crows, only the engines of the trucks of the work crews that are heading to another part of the fire can be heard.
The sun, when it can be seen, glows like a dull lamp filtered by smoke.
This is still very dense despite the fact that the fire consumed the place last Wednesday night.
Dixie fumes reach other states and cities hundreds of miles away.
The National Guard patrols the streets of Greenville, California.
David Odisho / AFP
In the town of Quincy, 65 kilometers from Greenville, there is one of the three shelters set up by the Red Cross for the evacuated population.
Despite the shocking size of the fire, there are no fatalities and authorities have only reported three firefighters injured.
On Saturday night three women, who had never experienced such a colossal fire, were trying to explain what happened outside the Springs of Hope Church:
- "They blew up the two gas stations ...", said Deborah, 57, a neighbor of Taylorsville, 10 miles from Greenville.
- “There were also propane tanks there.
That didn't help either, ”replied Marva, who lived on a camping ground closed by the authorities.
"And KABOOM!" Said Pony Stewart, a stocky 72-year-old from Crescent Mills, propped up on a crutch. "My nephew told me that in the distance he could see two huge black clouds."
The hostel is full. Deborah and Marva sleep in their cars accompanied by their dogs. Deborah wanted to stay home, but was forced to leave her by a police officer and a firefighter. It is a common problem that the authorities are grappling with, who have even been driven off land at gunpoint. Pony, on the other hand, had no hesitation in leaving soon. He learned his lesson after his son, with an intellectual disability, did not follow orders and was surrounded by flames that sent him to the hospital with minor burns. “Here I have seen many people who are my neighbors for the first time in my life. And now I know how wonderful they are, ”says the woman, who has been at home for 32 years and is very concerned about the fate of the mural she painted to honor the roots of American Indians in the region.It would be another piece of memory that dies in the flames of Dixie.
Subscribe here to the
EL PAÍS América
newsletter
and receive all the information keys on the region's current affairs