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BERKELEY, Calif. - Hundreds of firefighters worked Thursday to protect the scenic community of Big Sur from a lightning-sparked wildfire that inched closer to historic structures after burning 16 homes and threatening another 500 houses.
The blaze in the Los Padres National Forest was only 3 percent contained and had burned nearly 37 square miles near the coast about a mile south of Big Sur, officials said.
A popular tourist spot along the towering cliffs of the central California coast, Big Sur is also a storied destination for generations of American writers.
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A library named after "Tropic of Cancer" author Henry Miller, who spent the last years of his life at Big Sur, was directly threatened by the fire, but so far firefighters had beaten back the flames, fire spokesman Curtis Vincent said.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service predicted more dry lightning toward the end of the week, although forecasters did not expect as severe an electrical storm as occurred last weekend, when nearly 8,000 lightning strikes sparked about 800 fires across Northern California.
Resources stretched thin
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Monterey County to assess the damage and said he has called in the National Guard to help fight the fires.
"The fact is that when you have that many fires — and there are still 700 fires left all over the state of California — you get stretched thin with the resources," Schwarzenegger said.
The state's largest fire, located about 20 miles east of the Big Sur fire in a more remote area of the Los Padres forest, also continued to vex firefighters, having scorched more than 92 square miles and destroyed two homes. The blaze, sparked by a campfire on June 8, was about 71 percent contained.
Monterey County sheriff's officials said mandatory evacuation orders were in place for both fires, but could not specify how many people were forced from their homes.
The governor also visited Butte County, where 27 lightning-sparked fires covering about 8 square miles were threatening 1,000 homes. The blazes, which were only 5 percent contained, cropped up just as the county was recovering from a fire that charred 74 homes and 36 square miles earlier this month.
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Fire crews from Nevada and Oregon have arrived to help California firefighters battle hundreds of blazes that are darkening skies over the San Francisco Bay area and Central Valley, causing public health officials to issue air-quality warnings.
Hardest hit
Areas hit the hardest by the lightning storm also included Mendocino County, where 106 fires have burned more than 33 square miles and threatened about 500 homes, and the Shasta-Trinity Forest, where more than 150 fires have burned nearly 19 square miles and threatened 200 homes.
In central New Mexico, meanwhile, a forest fire in the Manzano Mountains led to the voluntary evacuations of about 350 people, some six weeks after another adjacent fire caused evacuations in the same area.
The fire had charred at least 3,000 acres by Thursday morning, said Vicki Fox, a fire information officer. The voluntary evacuees are from Tajique and the subdivisions of Sherwood Forest and Forest Valley on the east side of the mountains, she said.
Another 150 campers and staff at the Inlow Baptist Youth Camp were evacuated Tuesday.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A large lightning storm this week sparked over 800 wildfires in northern California. A lightning storm this past Friday caused wildfires burning from Mendocino County to Monterey County, the latter a county that has been declared an emergency zone, along with Trinity County. Of the 800 wildfires burning, recent numbers say that around 200 are unattended, some being left to burn themselves out.

Over 100,000 acres have been burned from these wildfires. Already an early fire season, the National Climatic Data Center reports this has been the driest spring in 114 years of record keeping. The lack of precipitation and dry thunderstorms have turned the northern part of the state into a smoky inferno. Smoke is so bad in Sacramento (and as far away as Reno) that health authorities have encouraged the public to stay inside, and in Monterey County some residents were ordered to evacuate.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asked for help from other states, and Nevada and Oregon have thus far responded. Oregon has sent 2,400 firefighters already. Nevada itself has struggled with wildfires, nearly 100 fires are estimated to be burning. Oregon does not have as many wildfires due to their saturated climate.