A roaring wildfire that shut down a stretch of a major interstate near the California-Oregon border exploded in size as crews on Saturday scrambled to prevent flames from reaching rural communities.
The blaze in California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest was burning out of control after chewing through 58 square miles (150 square kilometers) of timber and brush since Wednesday.
Aircraft were temporarily prevented from making water and retardant drops because heavy smoke was trapped under cloud cover, making for limited visibility for pilots. Firefighters working in rugged terrain were contending with hot temperatures and gusty winds.
Authorities announced Friday that a 45-mile (72-kilometer) section of Interstate 5 north of Redding would remain closed at least until Sunday.
The fire has destroyed thousands of trees — some 70 feet (20 meters) tall — that could fall onto the highway that traverses the entire West Coast from Mexico to Canada and serves as a main artery for commerce.
Truckers and other motorists were forced to take circuitous local routes that added hours to travel times.
Interstate 5 became a ghost road after fire turned hills on either side into walls of flame. Drivers fled in terror and several big-rigs burned.
Nearly 300 homes were considered threatened, but the blaze was not burning near any large towns, fire spokesman Brandon Vacarro said.
Meanwhile crews near California's border with Nevada gained minimal containment of another wildfire that closed highways on the edge of the Sierra Nevada.
A previous fire this year near Redding and another in the Mendocino area — the two largest blazes in the state this year — destroyed or damaged 8,800 homes and 329 businesses.
The Mendocino fire was expected to be fully contained by Sunday, more than six weeks after it started.
The death toll has hit 39 from a powerful earthquake that struck the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido last week, authorities said Sunday. One person remained missing in the hard-hit town of Atsuma, where multiple landslides triggered by the quake slammed into houses at the foot of steep hills.
Rescue workers used backhoes and shovels to search for the missing in a tangle of dirt, fallen trees and the rubble of homes left by the landslides. All but four of the victims were from Atsuma, a community of 4,600 people.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited hard-hit Kiyota ward on the eastern edge of Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido. In some parts of Kiyota, the earth liquefied and sank as much as a meter (3 feet), tilting houses, cracking roads and unleashing a mudflow that solidified and trapped vehicles in parking lots.
The magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck before daybreak Thursday and knocked out power and train service across Hokkaido, home to 5.4 million people. It took two days to restore electricity to most households. A few hundred were still without power Sunday, mostly in Atsuma.
About 2,600 people were staying in temporary shelters, down from a peak of 16,600, the Hokkaido government said.
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