Carr Fire destroys at least 125 homes

"There have been some injuries to civilians and firefighters", California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spokesman Scott McLean told the Sacramento Bee newspaper.

After leaping over California's Sacramento River, the swiftly-moving Carr Fire entered the City of Redding, home to more than 90,000 people, on Thursday night. "There was not much of a warning". Fire officials said the mechanical failure of a vehicle sparked the blaze on Monday.

Weather conditions are exacerbating the fire, with hot and windy weather fanning the flames, causing the wall of fire to grow larger.

Wildfires throughout the state have burned through tinder-dry brush and forest, forced thousands to evacuate homes and forced campers to pack up their tents at the height of summer. Gov.

"Several staff members have evacuated their own homes then returned to care for patients", he said.

A local TV news crew in Redding was also evacuated while on the air.

The tragic result of this explosion was the death of a bulldozer operator who was battling the blaze.

Sharon Stapleton of Shasta, Calif., said she and her husband were awakened when law enforcement officials came to their door in the middle of the night telling them to evacuate.

Gusty winds reaching 60 miles per hour are fanning the flames and creating fire tornadoes, or "firenadoes", that move erratically and are strong enough to overturn vehicles "like toys", McLean told reporters at a news conference late Thursday.

The blaze, which is raging west of the park, has burned 44,223 acres and is 27% contained, the US Forest Service said.

To the north, at least one home burned in another fast-moving blaze in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"I don't think we can predict which way this fire's going to go, and that's why I didn't take any chances", Ing said.

The Carr Fire continues its destruction in Northern California and a local news station found themselves right in the middle of it.

There were over 1,700 firefighters have been working to control the blaze.

Governor Jerry Brown declares a State of Emergency in response to the Carr Fire.

This year so far, nearly 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) have been blackened by wildfires, above a 10-year average of 3.6 million acres (1.5 million hectares) over the same period, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. That blaze killed 36-year-old Braden Varney, a heavy equipment operator for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection whose bulldozer rolled over into a ravine July 14.

About 3,000 residents were under evacuation orders today in Idyllwild and several neighboring communities.

CalFire reported 65 structures destroyed by the blaze, but McLean called that tally a "placeholder" figure that would grow significantly, with the number of homes lost likely to run into "the hundreds" as the scope of devastation was fully assessed.