Only about 3 percent of the fire's area has been contained
July 2 (Reuters) - A barely contained wildfire in northern California grew by about one-third overnight to 44,500 acres (18,000 hectares), the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on Monday, during a busier-than-usual year for U.S. wildfires.
The County Fire broke out on Saturday in Yolo County, about 35 miles northwest of Sacramento, and has spread to Napa and Lake counties, its smoke drifting some 75 miles (120 km) south toward San Francisco, leaving films of ash on the cars and windows of Bay area residents.
Only about 3 percent of the fire's area has been contained, fire officials said. Residents in some parts of rural Yolo County have been ordered to evacuate.
Wildfires have burned through nearly 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) in the United States as of June 29, well above the average of about 2 million acres for the same calendar period over the last 10 years, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, a monitoring group.
California and Colorado have been hard hit. The largest wildfire in Colorado, the 416 Fire, has consumed more than 51,000 acres, about 13 miles (21 km) north of Durango in the southwestern part of the state. It is 37 percent contained, according to state data.
In 2017, a near record 10 million acres (4 million hectares) were burned in wildfires, the National Interagency Coordination Center said. The agency issued a forecast in June for "above-normal significant large fire potential" this month in southern California and the Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, because of a deepening drought and ample fuel for wildfires.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
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