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Firefighters launched a desperate stand Tuesday to save a small Northern California town as its 3,000 residents evacuated and its hospital and jail emptied.

“At this point, we’re trying to do anything we can to save Weaverville,” said Rose Wyckoff, a California Department of Forestry spokeswoman. “The fire is not burning near the town, it’s actually burning in the town.”

About 1,200 firefighters battled the raging 1,300-acre fire. As many as a dozen structures, including homes and businesses, had been destroyed, officials said. Hundreds of others were threatened in the picturesque, heavily wooded town about 40 miles northwest of Redding.

Firefighters were hampered by 30-mph winds that whipped the fire apart. The fire, which started at about 3 p.m., had split by nighttime.

“The fire now has two heads, and even though they’re going in the same direction it makes it much harder to fight,” Wyckoff said. “It’s really moving fast. There’s a lot of heavy timber, and the tops of the trees are burning. It looks like the sky is on fire.”

Because of the hills and thick stands of timber, many houses in the town are inaccessible. As a result, firefighters had a particularly difficult time evacuating residents.

The mandatory evacuation was ordered at 7:30 p.m. Many residents spent the night at the Victorian Inn, just south of the town. Others stayed with relatives and friends in the area.

Trinity Hospital, the county’s only hospital, was voluntarily evacuated earlier in the day as a precaution along with the county jail, said department of forestry spokesman Jason Martin.

The department’s Steve Gasaway told the Associated Press that three-fourths of the town was without power Tuesday night.

Dennis Hodges, manager of the Victorian Inn, said 1,000 to 1,200 evacuees were gathered at the Victorian Restaurant next door, which has been set up as the evacuation center.

“We’re having to deal with a lot of distraught people,” Hodges said. “Everyone in Weaverville is bending over backward to be helpful. We have three families staying in some rooms. Our rooms are absolutely full.”

The parking lot and streets outside the inn also were lined with people camping not far from their threatened homes, Hodges said. Throughout the night, Hodges said, he fielded hundreds of calls from residents’ relatives across the country who had heard that Weaverville was in danger.

Late into the night, a line of cars streamed south toward Redding. Smoke from the fire could be seen 24 miles away in Hayfork, Hodges said. Sections of California 299, a mountain road leading into the town, were closed due to the fire.

Along with the firefighters on the ground, six air tankers and eight helicopters fought the blaze.

No injuries were reported, and the cause of the fire is unknown.

Other fires also continued to burn Tuesday in Western states:

California: Firefighters pulled back from an intense fire west of Lake Tahoe as high winds drove it over two ridges, threatening several structures.

The 4-day-old, 6,000-acre Star Fire was burning along the Middle Fork of the American River in the Eldorado and Tahoe national forests about 25 miles west of Lake Tahoe.

The fire was about two miles from the state’s northernmost grove of redwood trees, but moving away from it, said Ross Trotter, a fire information officer for the U.S. Forest Service.

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Washington: The 7,697-acre Icicle Creek complex of fires near Leavenworth and the 31,860-acre St. Mary’s fire near Okanogan were expected to be fully contained behind fire lines late Tuesday.

Crews fighting the Rex Creek fire, which has burned 43,000 acres north of Lake Chelan, were removing hoses from residences along the shore and beginning to demobilize.

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Montana: Glacier National Park officials closed four campgrounds Tuesday and banned trips into the back country as firefighters battled a 4,700-acre blaze that burned just west of the park and forced the evacuation of a dozen homes.

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Times staff writer Hector Becerra and Associated Press contributed to this story.