California's largest single wildfire in recorded history kept pushing through forestlands as fire crews tried to protect rural communities from flames that have destroyed hundreds of homes.
Thick smoke cleared for several hours along one edge of the Dixie Fire on Monday, allowing aircraft to join nearly 6,000 firefighters in the attack. Many were battling to protect more than a dozen small mountain and rural communities in the northern Sierra Nevada.
"Today was the first day in a few days that we had good, clean air in there so we were able to use our helicopters," allowing some progress, Kyle Jacobson, the east zone incident commander, said at an evening briefCrews managed to cut thousands of acres of new fire lines and the fire's southern edges were in good shape but the fire's future was an unknown, authorities said.
"We don't know where this fire is going to end and where it's going to land. It continues to challenge us," said Chris Carlton, supervisor for Plumas National Forest.ing.