The biggest fire of the year in California grows out of control and threatens thousands of homes

By Dennis Romero —

The Oak fire in California, which began as a 60-acre blaze in remote mountains on Friday and quickly created a stir on social media, reached nearly 12,000 acres (the equivalent of more than 9,000 football fields) on Saturday night. ), destroyed 10 structures, damaged another five, and threatened nearly 2,700 other buildings in the area.

There are

Saturday, according to Daniel Patterson, a spokesman for the Sierra National Forest.

Its spectacular images of raging flames and a billowing cloud of smoke were a symptom of a growing wildfire, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Hector Vasquez said.

As of late Saturday,

, according to fire officials.

Flames consume a home on Triangle Rd. as the Oak Fire burns in Mariposa County, Calif., Saturday, July 23, 2022.Noah Berger/AP

The fire on Friday produced a plume of pyrocumulus smoke that could be seen from Reno, Nevada, across the Sierra Nevada mountains.

On Saturday, NASA released satellite images showing the

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The Twitter account for the interactive map of the county, which includes areas covered by evacuation orders, proclaimed, "This has gone from bad to worse."

The National Interagency Coordinating Center for Wildfire Response said Saturday that the Oak Fire was the product of "extreme fire behavior, with racing, long-range blotting and single-tree burning."

Vasquez said the fire's rapid growth shows the potential to become one of

absent so far this summer despite three straight years of drought, a warmer-than-normal spring and a scorching heat that began before the equinox, the meteorological start of the season.

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Firefighters are hoping good luck will prevent at least one of the factors fueling the Oak fire:

Conditions are ideal so far, with dead trees and brittle branches felled by a bark beetle infestation and little respite in the forecast.

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“We have the wind, the rugged terrain and the dry conditions,” Vasquez said.

The National Weather Service forecasts high temperatures to hover near

with

One thing firefighters can control is human response.

Calfire and its federal and local partners have dedicated more than 400 people to the Oak Fire.

They will have to contend with their push north into the Sierra National Forest and their tendency to grow through spot fires that thrive on dry, beetle-damaged fuel.

Yosemite National Forest is only about 30 miles (48 km) east of the fire's torso.

The park already dodged a bullet when the separate Washburn Fire threatened its prized giant sequoia trees, but it has been mostly contained without killing any of them.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom's office secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Saturday that will bolster firefighting resources by allowing the state to bill the federal government for much of the response to the Oak Fire.

Newsom declared a state of emergency in Mariposa County on Saturday as a result

The declaration clears the way for more state resources to fight the fire and for eventual recovery.

Mandatory evacuations apply to multiple neighborhoods in Mariposa County, with several more added to an “advisory” list of communities that need to pack up and be ready to run.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

With information from AP.