Wildfire is 20% contained but still produces a painful scene in Calif.

Associated Press

MIDDLETOWN, CALIF.

A predictable but painful summertime ritual played out in half a dozen resort communities near California’s largest freshwater lake on Tuesday as an erratic, week-old wildfire that has wiped out dozens of buildings continued to threaten nearly 7,000 more.

As firefighters and equipment from outside the state poured in to battle the blaze burning 10 miles from Clear Lake, more than 13,000 people were required or urged to leave their homes, vacation cabins and campsites in the latest fire-prone region to find itself under siege.

“This never gets easier,” said Gina Powers, who with her husband and cats Sunday night fled the Spring Valley home she has evacuated before in the more than two decades she has lived there. “This time, it was scarier.”

State and federal fire officials said the stubborn fire had consumed more than 101 square miles by Tuesday morning after flames jumped a highway in several places.

Fire crews had made some progress. As of Tuesday afternoon, officials said the fire had not spread and is 20 percent contained.

The fire, by far the largest of 11 burning in Northern California, started July 29 in drought-withered brush that has not burned in years in the Lower Lake area, about 100 miles north of San Francisco. A cause has not been determined.

The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, has the wildfire listed as the nation’s highest priority for crews and equipment even as potentially destructive blazes burned in Oregon and Washington, spokesman Mike Ferris said.

Ferris called the fire “one big monster.”