California wildfires burn 2,000 acres prompting evacuations

REDDING, Calif. - Wildfires in rural California burned through 2,000 acres of brush and timberland on Friday, prompting some evacuations, but no homes were threatened, officials said.

A 1,200-acre fire erupted Friday afternoon in the unincorporated community of Igo, a few miles from Redding in Northern California. It was 10 percent contained by nightfall.

Evacuations were ordered near some roads to clear the way for fire crews and as a precaution in case a wind shift drove flames toward scattered homes in the area, state fire spokesman Dennis Mathisen said.

The fire was burning in a foothill area of brush and oak, he said.

Aircraft and about 280 firefighters were on the scene but the work was challenging because the fire seemed to be heading into steeper areas.

"They still have a lot of work ahead of them," Mathisen said.

In Central California, an 800-acre fire is burning in a remote wilderness area of the Sequoia National Forest.

The forest where the fire started is south of and separate from the Sequoia National Park east of Fresno, which is famous for its giant Sequoia trees.

The fire broke out around 2 p.m., and within a couple of hours it had burned more than 1 square mile of the Kiavah Wilderness area, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Cindy Thill said. The blaze east of Lake Isabella, 50 miles northeast of Bakersfield, burned through shrubs and skipped across the treetops in some places, she said.

No homes were evacuated or in danger but firefighters hit it with air tankers and helicopters, and hundreds of firefighters were called in to help slow it on the ground.

No roads cross through that part of the forest, making it accessible only by foot and air, Thill said, and the cause of the fire was not immediately known.