Crews Doing Battle With 80,000-Acre Wildfire

Crews in the central part of the state fought a fast-moving wildfire that burned through four miles in under an hour, sending a plume of smoke 35,000 feet into the air and raining embers and ash.

The fire, estimated at 80,000 acres, flared late Thursday after firefighters had worked for weeks to contain it. The flare-up forced the evacuation of about 300 residents from the alpine resort town of Camp Sherman. Many had been evacuated before and were allowed back into their homes four days earlier.