

Flames and smoke from the Ponderosa Fire are seen, Monday Aug. 20, 2012, near Paynes Creek, Calif. Nearly 1,900 firefighters were battling the Ponderosa Fire in rugged, densely forested terrain as it threatened 3,500 homes in the towns of Manton, Shingletown and Viola, about 170 miles north of Sacramento.
© AP
MANTON, California — Fire officials say dozens of buildings, many of them likely homes, have been destroyed in a fire burning in Northern California.
State fire spokesman Daniel Berlant says fire crews assessing the fire in a rural area determined Tuesday that 50 buildings had been destroyed.
Officials did not have an accurate count yet of how many of the structures were homes, but Berlant noted the buildings were spread across a vast rural area of mostly residential homes.