One person was found dead inside a burned-out house Friday after a wind-fueled wildfire swept through a rural community in the Sierra Nevada foothills, a rare human casualty among the hundreds of blazes that have tormented the state for weeks.

Investigators believe the person died in the fire in the town of Concow, but they will conduct an autopsy on the burned body to confirm the cause of death, said Sgt. Steven Pelton, the county’s deputy coroner-sheriff.

The town had been evacuated when the blaze approached early Tuesday, “but unfortunately not everyone chose to leave and you cannot force them to,” Pelton said. “This appears to be one of those people.”

A complex of blazes in Butte County already has destroyed 50 homes in Concow and forced some 10,000 residents of the nearby town of Paradise to flee reports the Associated Press in the Daily News.

Firefighters battling the out-of-control fires in the Sierra Nevada foothills thought they had caught a break Friday when strong winds they feared could blow hot embers across fire lines toward thousands of homes did not immediately materialize. The northeast winds forecast for the morning were expected to be similar to those that caused the fire to flare up earlier this week.

Read it here: 1 killed in Calif. wildfires; more Guard troops coming