California wildfire razes U.S. town to ruins

The Dixie Fire swept through Greenville in California last week, destroying everything in its path.

Louisa Naks reports.

A U.S. town has been burned to ashes after the second largest wildfire in California's history swept through, destroying homes and businesses.

The Dixie Fire reached the historic gold-rush town of Greenville on August 4.

Now all that remains are smoldering ruins.

Greenville resident Jack Romero has lost everything.

"It's gone, it's gone.

There's several times in the last week I've wished I could just go home and then I remember I can't go home.

There's nothing to go back to.

Even if the house survived, pretty much the rest of the town is gone.

There's no power.

There's no water.

There's no - everything's gone." The Dixie Fire has now grown to almost 500,000 acres.

More than 5,000 firefighters are tackling the blaze, which has been burning for almost a month, and it shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

Local communities are providing hope and a lifeline to their neighbors who have nothing left.

Greenville resident Margie Meeker owned her own business in the town.

"Well, I lost my beauty shop, so my way of making a living, I lost my house.

My home is gone.

And there's so many people that I know up there and I'm seeing them here, which is great.

But, yeah, this is a great community and everybody's just wanting to help." As Greenville residents try to pick up the pieces, Jocelyn Hillard from the American Red Cross has warned that this might not yet be the end of it.

"One thing that really stands out to me is that some of the folks that have been evacuated have been evacuated many times over the past couple of years.

We've seen some folks who have come to a shelter for just a few days to return home, to come back again because of those evacuation warnings." California typically experiences peak fire season later in the year, but the state is on track to suffer even more burnt acreage this year than last - which was the worst fire season on record.