PULGA, Calif. (AP) - A blaze that erupted near the flashpoint of the deadliest wildfire in recent U.S. history was heading away from homes on Thursday but survivors of the 2018 blaze in the town of Paradise worried that history could repeat itself.

The Dixie Fire had burned a couple of square miles of brush and timber near the Feather River Canyon area of Butte County and moved into national forest land in neighboring Plumas County.

There was zero containment and officials said people in the tiny, remote communities of Pulga and east Concow should prepare to leave at a moment’s notice.

Flames raced along steep and hard-to-reach terrain about 10 miles from Paradise, the foothill town that was virtually incinerated by the Camp Fire that killed 85 people.

Larry Peterson, whose home in neighboring Magalia survived the previous blaze, said some of his neighbors were getting their belongings together in case they had to flee.

“Anytime you’ve got a fire after what we went through, and another one is coming up, you’ve got to be concerned,” he told KHSL-TV.

Other locals stocked up on water and other items.

“We pretty much left with our clothes on our backs” during the previous fire, said Jennifer Younie of Paradise. “So this time we are looking to be more prepared and more vigilant.”

Joyce Mclean’s home burned last time but she has rebuilt it and will again if necessary, she told the station.

“We just take each day as it comes and if it happens, it happens,” Mclean said. “There’s not much that we can do about it.”

Ironically, the blackened scar of the previous blaze was standing between the fire and homes.

“Everything’s pretty much burned between them and the fire,” Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly told the Sacramento Bee. “Some bushes and grass have grown back, but it’s probably not a direct threat at this time.”

The blaze is just one of nearly 70 active wildfires that have destroyed homes and burned through about 1,562 square miles - a combined area larger than Rhode Island - in a dozen mostly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

In southern Oregon the Bootleg Fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the U.S., had torched an area larger than New York City and destroyed 20 houses.

It threatened 2,000 structures in an area just north of California that’s been gripped by a historic drought.