More than 800 wildfires burning in California

Wildfires in neighboring states
The lightning strikes touched off nearly 100 fires in neighboring Nevada.  There was no estimate for containment or control of any of them.

One of the worst was in the Little Valley near Fall River Mills, where two large fires merged Monday night, burning 3,000 acres.  The Lassen County Sheriff's Department advised Little Valley residents to be alert for evacuation.

About 50 fires were burning in Plumas National Forest near Feather River Canyon.  Together, they had burned about 3,300 acres by Tuesday morning.

In southern Arizona, two new human-caused wildfires were burning Monday but not threatening homes. A 700-acre fire that had been sparked by lightning in the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson was fully contained.

In New Mexico, crews dropped 11,500 incendiary balls to ignite unburned vegetation and halt a blaze that has charred more than 49,000 acres, largely on grazing allotments on federal land.

Lightning started that fire Tuesday in the Lincoln National Forest about 20 miles southwest of Hope. It was not threatening any structures.

"The ranchers have already moved a lot of the cattle that were out there," U.S. Forest Service fire information officer Deanna Younger said. The grazing areas "will be the main loss," she said.

Bus carrying inmate firefighters overturns
A bus carrying an inmate firefighting crew overturned in a remote part of southwest Riverside County, injuring 16 people, two of them critically.

Authorities say the bus blew a tire and rolled over near state Route 371 on Monday night, about 10 miles east of Temecula.

Riverside County Fire Department spokeswoman Jody Hagemann says four people were hospitalized, two with critical injuries and two moderately injured. Twelve people with minor injuries were treated at the scene.

The bus was carrying a crew from the Oak Glen Fire Camp in Yucaipa.

Earlier Monday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection had been fighting a 20-acre wildfire near the crash site. It was unclear Tuesday morning whether the crew on the bus had been at that fire.

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