California firefighters do battle with blazes

Lightning sparked as many as 400 fires that burned around Northern California yesterday, as officials farther south were close to containing a blaze that had destroyed more than a dozen homes and forced thousands to evacuate.

The largest was a 8-square-km blaze burning in grassy woodland about 64 km southeast of Sacramento, threatening scattered ranch houses. A mandatory evacuation was ordered for some residents, said Nancy Carniglia of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The blaze began in Napa County on Saturday afternoon and quickly spread to a mostly rural area of Solano County. It was 10 percent contained yesterday morning, Carniglia said.