SAVE MONEY ON TRAVEL DEALS

The blaze in the Sierra Nevada foothills area of Butte County, Calif., was estimated to be 45 percent contained by Saturday night as nearly 4,000 personnel joined the effort to fight the fire. Fierce winds that had been fueling the fire had died down and officials estimated the fire would be totally contained by Monday evening, the Chico (Calif.) Enterprise-Record reported Sunday.

In Paradise, Calif., officials of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, ordered the evacuation of more than a third of the town's 26,000 residents as flames blocked two of the three escape routes out of town. Panic ensued when some residents who didn't have to tried to flee, resulting in the heart attack death of an elderly woman, the newspaper said.

In nearby Santa Cruz County, another fire was reported to be 75 percent contained. That blaze had destroyed 10 structures. And in Monterey County's Los Padres National Forest near King City, Calif., another fire was threatening 660 homes and 150 other structures, with about 1,800 firefighters involved in that effort, the newspaper said.

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