A fire driven by fierce winds raced through a small town near the Oregon border on Monday, burning a church to the ground, damaging or destroying 100 homes and prompting evacuation orders for at least 1,500 people, authorities said. This tiny town near the base of Mount Shasta in the Cascade Mountains was under siege from a 350-acre blaze that surged toward and through it through timberland. The town sawmill caught fire, and a Catholic church was destroyed.