OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters lined streets to prevent flames from reaching homes as helicopters dropped water on a growing Northern California wildfire on Wednesday that forced at least 13,000 people to evacuate, with another day of extreme heat expected.

The Thompson Fire broke out before noon Tuesday about 70 miles north of Sacramento in and around the city of Oroville in Butte County. It emitted a huge plume of smoke and had reached an area of ​​nearly 4.5 square miles by Wednesday morning. It was zero percent contained.

A Emergency The city of around 20,000 residents on the Feather River at the foot of the Sierra Nevada declared a state of emergency on Tuesday evening. Evacuation centers were set up in a church and at the county fairgrounds.

There was no official report of property damage. An Associated Press photographer saw three adjacent suburban homes in Oroville go up in flames.

The fire ignited blades of grass that protruded from the concrete edges. Lake Oroville while gusty winds blew American flags along a bend in the state's second-largest reservoir and the nation's tallest dam.

Residents stood on the hills at night, watching the orange glow as planes dropped water to prevent the fire from spreading. A crew of more than a dozen firefighters saved a house while goats and other farm animals ran for their lives.

The cause of the fire is currently under investigation. When the fire broke out, warning signals were in place for critical weather conditions, including gusty northerly winds and low humidity.

The warnings are expected to remain in effect until 8 p.m. Wednesday, said Garret Sjolund, chief of the Butte County unit of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“The conditions in our county are very different this summer than the last two summers,” Sjolund said in an online briefing. “The fuels are very dense, the brush is dry. And as you can see, wind puts out a fire very quickly.”

More high temperatures above 100 degrees (37.8 degrees Celsius) were forecast for Wednesday, the National Weather Service said. The hot weather conditions are expected to continue into next week.

Authorities warned that the illegal use of fireworks during the Fourth of July holiday would result in significant legal consequences.

“Don't be an idiot, start a fire and create more problems for us,” said Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea. “Nobody in the community is going to want that. And we certainly don't want that.”

The governor's office announced late Tuesday that federal funds had been approved to assist with firefighting efforts. Gov. Gavin Newsom activated the State Operations Center this week to coordinate California's response, dispatch mutual aid and assist communities responding to the threat of wildfires and extreme heat.

According to Cal Fire, more than a dozen other fires were raging in California, most of them small. The largest, the Basin Fire, covered nearly 22 square miles of the Sierra National Forest in eastern Fresno County and was 26 percent contained.

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Antczak reported from Los Angeles.