Dixie Fire Burns Through Historic Greenville, Calif.

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A raging wildfire driven by strong winds tore through the small Northern California town of Greenville overnight, burning much of its historic center to the ground and leaving stretches of the community unrecognizable on Thursday.

a group of people riding on the back of a truck: A firefighter saving an American flag as flames from the Dixie Fire consumed a home on Wednesday in Greenville, Calif.© Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A firefighter saving an American flag as flames from the Dixie Fire consumed a home on Wednesday in Greenville, Calif.
“We lost Greenville tonight,” Representative Doug LaMalfa, who represents the area in Congress, said in a video posted to Facebook, adding that other towns in the region were also threatened by the blaze, known as the Dixie Fire.

The fire is the largest in California this year and the sixth-largest on record in the state, burning more than 322,000 acres, and was only 35 percent contained by Thursday morning. At least 45 structures have been burned since it started on July 14. Its cause remains under investigation, and there have been no reported fatalities.

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Fire officials estimated that 75 percent of the structures in Greenville had been lost to the fire, which crews continued to battle on Thursday.

“It took maybe 30 minutes before all of Greenville was literally flanked by fire,” said Ryan Schramel, who grew up in the town and now lives in nearby Taylorsville.

Mr. Schramel arrived in Greenville at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday to assist his father, a medical equipment provider, in helping an older resident who had not evacuated. The resident was able to get another a ride out of town, and Mr. Schramel watched as the fire quickly subsumed Greenville, including his own grandmother’s house.

“That’s my whole childhood,” Mr. Schramel said. “It was tragic to just watch the whole thing go up.”

With a population around 1,000 people about 150 miles north of Sacramento, Greenville was placed under a mandatory evacuation order on Monday. Wednesday night, amid worsening weather conditions, the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office underscored the warning: “If you are still in the Greenville area, you are in imminent danger and you must leave now!!”

“A lot of people chose to stay in here,” said Jake Cagle, an operations section chief for California Incident Management, in a fire briefing late Wednesday. In another briefing Thursday morning, he said that when residents ignore evacuation orders, it makes it more difficult for crews to contain the fires.

“When our resources come in and they have to load up people in their vehicles, in their fire vehicles, and put them in a safe spot, that takes us away from fighting the fire,” said Mr. Cagle, adding that some firefighters had been threatened with firearms by landowners who refused to evacuate.

Photographs from news agencies and social media showed buildings along Main Street and Highway 89 in Greenville burned to the ground as heavy smoke clouded the skies. An Associated Press photographer who was in town said that historic buildings and dozens of homes had been wiped out.

“Main street is literally dead, destroyed on both sides,” said Michael Hambrick, a helicopter firefighter who lost his own house in the nearby mountain community of Indian Falls to the Dixie Fire last month.

“It’s all wind without quit, and this is pushing this thing everywhere,” said Mr. Hambrick. With the fire now spreading toward the towns of Chester and Westwood, he said he worried that they could meet the same fate as Greenville.

The small community of Crescent Mills was also threatened on Thursday. Ryan Kelly said he had stayed there hoping to defend his sister’s home, and during a phone interview, he described watching as helicopters dumped water over a nearby ridgeline to try to protect the tiny town.

“The fire is about to crest over the mountain, any minute now,” he said. Dozens of firefighters with chain saws had been at work trying to cut a fire line above the town’s cemetery the night before, he said, but with heavy brush and high winds, he said, the odds were not good.

“Worse case scenario, pretty much,” he said.

Mr. Kelly worked in hemp cultivation in the Sierra Valley, he said, but this year’s wildfires had claimed the farm. “My brother lost his home in Belden too,” he said. “Everyone I know lost their homes. Yesterday my buddy lost his home outside of Greenville. It’s just, everybody.”

The current fire season, spurred on by months of drought and blistering heat waves, has threatened dozens of communities across the West. As climate change exacerbates drought conditions, fires are spreading with a rare speed and scope.

“These are not the normal fires anymore,” Mr. Cagle, the section chief, said. “It’s just intense fire behavior, and it’s not what we’re used to.”

The Dixie Fire is one of 96 burning in the United States, including 11 California and 24 in Montana, according to federal wildfire data. The River Fire, which broke out on Wednesday about 40 miles northeast of Sacramento, has already burned 2,400 acres, forcing thousands of evacuations. As of Thursday morning, the fire was not yet contained and had destroyed 50 structures and damaged 30 more. There have been no fatalities reported.

The Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon is the largest so far this year in the country, having burned more than 400,000 acres. It was so intense at one point, it generated its own weather.

A red flag warning, indicating conditions are ripe for increased risk of fire danger, was in effect for areas around the Sacramento Valley and points farther north, including Plumas County, through Thursday, the National Weather Service said. Winds gusts up to 35 m.p.h. were also expected.

Firefighters had been working this week to protect buildings in Greenville, according to Cal Fire, and aircraft were also working to support ground efforts where visibility allowed.

Greenville is the largest town in Indian Valley, a verdant mountain valley with a cluster of small towns whose inhabitants once depended on timber from the surrounding mountains, and where many residents still rely on cattle ranching.

Since the Dixie Fire erupted, the sky in Indian Valley has intermittently been covered in smoke so thick that it conceals the silhouette of the mountains that ring the valley, residents said.

A Gold Rush town, Greenville still had many buildings that dated back to the 19th century, and its Main Street facades were reminiscent of old Westerns. Its isolation contributed to a feeling that it was lost to time, preserved by its remote location from many forces defining contemporary life.

Over the last decade, however, its inhabitants have struggled with the effects of the droughts that have devastated much of California and contributed to the dangerous conditions fueling wildfires.

Since late July, residents have contended with evacuation orders that shifted from day to day. Many in the area had chosen to stay, helping one another dig trenches, spray down homes and irrigate fields, while some had stored belongings in horse and cattle trailers, in case the fire came over the mountains.