Firefighters on Thursday battled a series of fast-growing wildfires burning across Northern California, including a wind-whipped blaze that destroyed at least 10 homes and forced thousands of residents to evacuate. Authorities closed all roads to Paradise, a town of about 30,000 residents about 90 miles north of Sacramento, and ordered several thousand Butte County residents to leave their homes. An evacuation shelter was set up in nearby Chico. The blaze, which started Wednesday, had grown to nearly 30 square miles and threatened more than 5,000 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. More than 1,300 firefighters were trying to contain the blaze, which was only 10 percent contained Thursday evening.

The fire had spread to the hills of the Butte College campus, where fire officials had set up their incident command center, said CDF spokesman Joshpae White.

"The fire is jumping around quite a bit. It's flaring up in a lot of different areas," White said.

Hot temperatures, steady winds and tinder-dry vegetation and trees have fueled blazes from Butte County to the Los Padres National Forest in Monterey County.

In Santa Cruz County, about 900 firefighters were battling fast-moving wildfire that had grown to 700 acres and destroyed at least 10 homes in the Bonny Doon community, according to CDF. It was 25 percent contained Thursday evening.

More than 1,500 residents have been told to evacuate their homes in the heavily forested hills about 10 miles northwest of Santa Cruz since the fire broke out Wednesday afternoon.

James Eason, 28, a full-time caretaker for his quadriplegic dad Jim Eason, 63, said they spent Thursday hanging out with other evacuees in a supermarket parking lot after spending the night in a Red Cross shelter in Felton, several miles from the blaze.

On Wednesday, they evacuated their $1,300-a-month yurt, a nearly uninsulated wooden-framed structure covered in canvas where they have lived for the past three months. They weren't able to check on their home Thursday and planned to spend another night at the shelter, which was moved to a middle school in nearby Scotts Valley.

"It's stressful and frustrating, it makes you anxious not knowing if you're going to have a place to go back to," James Eason said. "All of a sudden, with the fire, the yurt doesn't seem so bad. We've started to like it a whole lot."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Butte County late Wednesday to free up additional firefighting resources. He declared another one in Santa Cruz County early Thursday.

Farther south, another wildfire had charred more than 28 square miles in the Los Padres National Forest and was 40 percent contained.

The fire had spread east to a remote part of the Army's Fort Hunter Liggett and was moving toward the incident command post Thursday. But winds were driving the flames away from inhabited areas of the military base, said Manny Madrigal, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

Fort Hunter Liggett spokeswoman Helen Elrod said four families with homes near the base were evacuated, but the 5,000 military personnel who live there were not in immediate danger.

Meanwhile, a southeastern Colorado wildfire that started on a military training site doubled in size in one day and was threatening eight nearby ranches. On Thursday, about 242 firefighters were fighting the fire, which scorched more than 65 square miles of remote and rugged country.

Military officials said Thursday the fire crossed the Purgatoire River, a natural fire break, and is now burning in surrounding federal, state and private land.

Officials believe lightning sparked the blaze.

The fire has not been contained at all and low humidity, high heat and gusting winds have hampered efforts to control the fire, said Capt. Gregory Dorman of Fort Carson.

In Colorado's Crowley County, prosecutors have decided not to file criminal charges against a man accused of causing an April wildfire that killed two volunteer firefighters, destroyed 22 homes and burned 14 square miles of prairie grass.

District Attorney Rod Fouracre said Wednesday that the fire was an accident.

The Crowley County sheriff's office, however, planned to issue a summons to Sam Martson, who allegedly violated a county ordinance by not getting permission to start a prescribed burn on April 14, Fouracre said. Violations of the ordinance are punishable by a fine of up to $1,000.

In far eastern North Carolina, smoke from a more than 60-square-mile wildfire was having a serious effect on air quality hundreds of miles away. The state issued a Code Red notice forecasting unhealthy air Thursday and Friday for the Triangle area of Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham, as well as the Rocky Mount area.

Lightning ignited the blaze June 1 on privately owned land and it has burned in and around the Pocosin Lakes Wildlife Refuge ever since. Firefighting officials say there is little they can do to extinguish the wildfire until a massive rainstorm falls.

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Associated Press Writers Don Thompson and Samantha Young in Sacramento, Jason Dearen in San Francisco and Martha Waggoner in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

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