The Dixie wildfire burned almost everything in the northern California gold rush town of Greenville, but a Dollar General store and Greenville High School, built in 1938, remained standing, USA Today reports.
The wildfire, now the third-largest fire in modern California history, also forced the closure of Lassen Volcanic National Park on Thursday, the paper noted. That park covers more than 100,000 acres about a two-hour drive north of Sacramento.
It has been burning for three weeks and has destroyed more more than 100 homes and more than 250 structures in all in the area, but no casualties have been reported yet. At least five people, however, have been reported missing.
Dry brush in California’s forests and rising temperatures have contributed to an increase in damage caused by wildfires in recent years. Since 1932, before which records are considered unreliable, eight of the 20 largest wildfires in the state, in terms of the number of acres burned, have occurred since 2020.
