'Not leaving': Residents are defying evacuation orders to ride out California fires

Tollhouse (United States) (AFP) - James Hancock scans the hills he has known since childhood and rules out flames coming towards his home, on a Native American reservation nestled in a mountainous area of California ravaged by out-of-control wildfires.Hancock has decided to defy an evacuation order issued for the town of Tollhouse, close to where the blaze known as the Creek Fire is burning. It has already devoured more than 175,000 acres (71,000 hectares) since it was ignited a week ago, and just six percent of it is contained.Hancock is one of the few who stayed. Life seems to have stopped s...

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