California town that wildfires had spared faces new reality

(AP) — Unlike many surrounding mountain hamlets and valleys, this hardscrabble Northern California town was spared last summer when wildfires engulfed large swaths of a region unaccustomed to their destructive power.

A wildfire allegedly started by a resident of the area and fed by pines in the mountains and oaks that cluster on the rolling hills closer to town wiped out whole blocks, destroying more than 175 homes, businesses and other structures about a two-hour drive north of San Francisco.

The flames reached historic Main Street, where firefighters couldn't save an office of Habitat for Humanity, an organization that had been raising money to help rebuild homes in nearby communities torched a year ago.

Lower Lake is home to about 1,300 mostly working class people and retirees who are drawn by its rustic charm and housing prices that are lower than the San Francisco Bay Area.

Weather conditions bedeviled firefighters Monday and the forecast called for temperatures to reach the upper 90s in coming days, with no rain in sight.

Other than a pair of large blazes in the 1960s, which destroyed far fewer homes in a county that had just one-quarter its current 64,000 residents, lifelong resident and county supervisor Jim Comstock can't remember anything approaching the past year.

After 1,500 acres burned last year on the 1,700-acre ranch where Comstock grew up and still lives, he has cleared out brush to make fire breaks — a ritual familiar to other Californians who live in areas traditionally associated with wildfires.