LAME DEER, Mont. — Wildfires in Montana threatened rural towns and ranchland and victims of a California blaze returned to their incinerated town even as the region faced another round of dangerous weather.

Firefighters and residents scrambled to save hundreds of homes as flames continued to advance on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana.

Since Sunday, the fire has carved its way through some 260 square miles and prompted evacuation orders for thousands of people.

As the fire raged across rugged hills and narrow ravines, tribal member Darlene Small helped her grandson move about 100 head of cattle to a new pasture, only to relocate them twice more as the flames from the Richard Spring fire bore down, she said Friday. An extreme drought that's blanketing the West has made matters worse by stunting vegetation untouched by fire.

“They've got to have pasture where there's water. If there's no water, there's no good pasture,” Small said. Particularly hard hit were some ranchers already depending on surplus grass after a fire burned them off their normal pasture last year, she said.

Gusts and low humidity were creating extreme fire behavior as flames devoured brush, short grass and timber, fire officials said.

The same conditions turned California's Dixie Fire into a furious blaze that last week burned down much of the small town of Greenville in the northern Sierra Nevada. The fire that began a month ago has destroyed some 550 homes.

On Thursday, residents were trying to cope with the magnitude of the losses.

“Everything that I own is now ashes or twisted metal. That's just all it is,” said Greenville resident Ken Donnell, who escaped with just the clothes on his back.

Donnell said he was heart-broken but “by God, I'm gonna smile. Because you know, it just makes things a little bit better and a little bit better right now is a lot.”

Sam Prentice, a firefighter for the USDA Forest Service battled the flames in Greenville on Aug. 5, when the town was leveled. He was not optimistic on Greenville's ability to rebuild.

“Essentially it starts to become an archeology site — kind of a testament to the fire era that we're in right now,” said Prentice. “It's daunting.”

The fire had ravaged more than 800 square miles and continued to threaten more than a dozen rural and forest communities.