Category Archives: Forest Fires

The Dixie Fire, California’s second-largest wildfire in modern history, continues to displace thousands of people as new evacuation orders were issued this week. The more than month-old wildfire has burned at least 699,666 acres, more than 1,000 square miles, in Butte, Plumas, Lassen and Tehama counties. Recently, it has burned near the communities of Janesville and Susanville. The fire is 35% contained, Cal Fire said. Cal Fire Director Thom Porter said it appears to be the first fire to have burned from the west side of the Sierra Nevada all the way to the valley floor on the east side of the mountain range. “It is exceedingly resistant to control,” he said Wednesday. …The fire has charred an area larger than the city of Los Angeles and destroyed at least 1,217 structures. Roughly 16,000 structures remain threatened by the blaze, Cal Fire said. Nearly 6,000 personnel are helping battle the fire.

The Caldor Fire burning in California has grown 24 times its size in two days, forcing another 10,000 residents to evacuate. Fueled by wind and dry conditions, the fire burning in El Dorado County swelled to 62,586 acres Wednesday and is 0% contained, according to Cal Fire. The fire was sparked Saturday and the cause is unknown. The fast-moving fire continued to burn through “several steep drainages with the aid of the large amounts of dry vegetation,” causing even more evacuations, Cal Fire said Wednesday. California’s weather has only been making matters worse for those fighting the fires as well as the thousands who were directed to evacuate their homes. To protect people from that dire situation, the number of those evacuated in El Dorado County jumped to 16,380 Wednesday, up from about 6,850 the day prior, according to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

Several wildfires in Northern California exploded in size and burned in every direction Monday night into Tuesday morning as hot winds pushed flames through dry vegetation. The Sacramento Valley and surrounding foothills will be under a fire weather watch starting Tuesday night into Wednesday because of north to northeast dry, gusty winds of 25 mph to 35 mph. …Meanwhile, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. expanded the areas where it might cut power to prevent trees and branches from being blown into energized power lines and starting fires. The utility sent notices to about 51,000 customers in 18 counties. The majority of those shutoffs — about 32,494 — were expected Tuesday in Shasta, Tehama and Butte counties, where the nation’s largest active wildfire, the month-old Dixie Fire, is still growing and threatening small communities. Altogether, fires burned through more than 983,000 acres total.

SUSANVILLE, Calif.  — Gusty winds drove the nation’s largest wildfire toward a Northern California county seat as firefighters struggled to contain the month-old blaze amid forecasts of more dangerous weather. Afternoon winds gusting to 30 mph (48 kph) on Monday pushed the Dixie Fire within a few miles of Susanville and prompted evacuation orders for Janesville, a small nearby mountain community, fire officials said. Susanville, with about 18,000 people, is the county seat of Lassen County and the largest city that the blaze has approached. …Investigations are continuing, but Pacific Gas & Electric has notified utility regulators that the Dixie and Fly fires may have been caused by trees falling into its power lines. …The Dixie Fire is the largest of nearly 100 major wildfires burning across more than a dozen Western states that have seen historic drought and weeks of high temperatures and dry weather that have left trees, brush and grasslands as flammable as tinder.

A month-old wildfire burning through forestlands in Northern California lurched toward a small lumber town as blazes across the U.S. West strained resources and threatened thousands of homes with destruction. Crews were cutting back brush and using bulldozers to build lines to keep the Dixie Fire from reaching Westwood east of Lake Almanor, not far from where the blaze destroyed much of the town of Greenville last week. …They were among more than 100 large wildfires burning in a dozen Western states seared by drought and hot, bone-dry weather that has turned forests, and pastures into tinder. The U.S. Forest Service it’s operating in crisis mode, fully deploying firefighters and maxing out its support system. …Oregon Gov. Kate Brown declared an emergency for one of the fires to mobilize crews and other resources to the area of ranches, rural subdivisions and RV parks about 14 miles from the small town of Lakeview.

QUINCY, California — Thousands of Northern California homes were threatened Sunday by the nation’s largest wildfire and officials warned the danger of new blazes erupting across the West was high because of unstable weather. Thunderstorms that moved in starting Friday didn’t produce much rain but whipped up winds and generated lightning strikes across the northern Sierra where crews were battling the month-old Dixie Fire. Extreme heat returned Sunday with temperatures expected to top 100 degrees (38 Celsius). “We’re definitely still dealing with the possibility of lightning. Winds are all over the place. Things are going to be pretty unstable for the next couple days,” said fire spokesman Edwin Zuniga. Gusts of up to 50 mph (80 kph) on Saturday pushed flames closer to Janesville, a town of about 1,500 people just east of Greenville.

The second largest wildfire in California history grew again overnight as firefighters brace for challenging weather conditions over the next few days due to the threat of lightning. The Dixie Fire is 515,756 acres and 31% contained, according to an update Thursday evening from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fire has burned in Plumas, Butte, Tehama and Lassen counties, destroying more than 1,100 structures.  As of Thursday, more than 6,100 personnel were fighting the fire, which first started July 13, according to Cal Fire. 

A combination of high temperatures and lightning has Oregon fire officials bracing for what could be a challenging few days. “We do have a large amount of fire across all of our lands,” state Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said during a Thursday call with reporters. “The next 72 hours will be critical.” This fire season has been longer and more severe than usual in Oregon and across the West, which has stretched resources thin. More than 550,000 acres had burned in Oregon as of Thursday, most of them in the mammoth Bootleg Fire in Southern Oregon. …The concern now is that those fires, which have little to no containment, could balloon this weekend and that extreme weather could lead to even more fire starts. Oregon is in peak lightning season during a summer marked by record-shattering heat waves and unrelenting drought. …Oregon residents are urged to prepare for wildfire smoke this weekend.

California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history kept pushing through forestlands as fire crews tried to protect rural communities from flames that have destroyed hundreds of homes.   Thick smoke cleared for several hours along one edge of the Dixie Fire on Monday, allowing aircraft to join nearly 6,000 firefighters in the attack. Many were battling to protect more than a dozen small mountain and rural communities in the northern Sierra Nevada.  “Today was the first day in a few days that we had good, clean air in there so we were able to use our helicopters,” allowing some progress, Kyle Jacobson, the east zone incident commander, said at an evening briefing.  Crews managed to cut thousands of acres of new fire lines and the fire’s southern edges were in good shape but the fire’s future was an unknown, authorities said.  

California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history kept pushing through forestlands on Tuesday as fire crews tried to protect rural communities from flames that have destroyed hundreds of homes. Clear skies over parts of the month-old Dixie Fire have allowed aircraft to rejoin nearly 6,000 firefighters in the attack this week. “Whether or not we can fly depends very much on where the smoke is. There’s still some areas where it’s just too smoky,” fire spokesman Edwin Zuniga said. …Burning through bone-dry trees, brush and grass, the fire by Tuesday had destroyed more than 1,000 buildings, including nearly 550 homes. Much of the small community of Greenville was incinerated during an explosive run of flames last week. …Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. 

Facing record-breaking dry conditions across the West, the U.S. Forest Service announced it will aggressively put out all wildfires this summer. As a result, the agency’s use of “good fire,” the lower-intensity blazes that clear out overgrown forests, will also stop. With thousands of firefighting personnel battling extreme blazes, federal officials say no one can be spared for fire prevention work. But some fire experts worry that the blanket rule takes away the most important tools foresters have to reduce future wildfire risk, even in parts of the country where it may be safe to use them. More than 40 scientists sent a letter requesting the Forest Service reconsider the policy change. “It’s a tough decision, I think, because politically, there’s a lot of pressure to put every single fire out,” says Crystal Kolden, fire scientist at the University of California, Merced. “The problem is that political pressure is not based on good science.”