Category Archives: Forest Fires

Crews battling the Caldor fire southwest of Lake Tahoe in California endured another stressful weekend as the fire grew by more than 30,000 acres in just two days. The fire, which started on Aug. 14 and grew quickly, has burned 104,000 acres and was five percent contained as of Sunday evening. Nearly 350 homes have been destroyed, and more than 17,000 structures are threatened by the fire. At least 207 fire engines and 20 helicopters have been assisting in fighting the blaze, requiring more than 1,600 personnel so far. Thousands of people in El Dorado County had been urged to leave their homes or to prepare to do so, according to the governor’s office. Officials said that evacuation orders could remain in place for up to two weeks. On Saturday, high winds caused the fire to jump Highway 50, one of the main routes between Sacramento and the Lake Tahoe area. A portion of that highway remains closed.

Wildfires were burning 603,132 acres across Oregon and Washington as of Friday morning, officials said.  Nine of the active blazes are in Oregon, while 17 are in Washington. A majority of the fires were sparked by lightning, while a few remain under investigation.  The Ford Corkscrew fire in central Washington has prompted mandatory evacuations northwest of Spokane and damaged 20 buildings. The fire has burnt 15,000 acres since Aug. 15. It was 14% contained as of Friday.   The wildfires still burning in Oregon are nowhere as large as the Bootleg fire, which reached 100% containment Sunday after burning for more than a month. It was the third-largest fire in Oregon since 1900, scorching over 400,000 acres and destroying more than 160 homes.  Fires that remain active are located mostly in forest land and rural parts of the state. However, parts of Lane County remain under evacuation notice from the Middle Fork Complex, which has burned since July 29 and is at 7% containment.

PLACERVILLE, Calif. — Crews were digging in and burning out fire lines amid fears that another round of high winds on Saturday will bring renewed fury to Northern California’s Caldor wildfire.  “We have a firefight ahead of us and the wind today is going to make it very challenging,” said Keith Wade, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.  The Caldor fire in the northern Sierra Nevada already destroyed dozens of homes, and authorities on Friday closed down a 46-mile (74-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 50, the main route between the state capital of Sacramento and Lake Tahoe on the Nevada state line.  …Firefighters made progress on the fire’s western side and burned vegetation to starve it of fuel and prevent the flames from heading into the evacuated community of Pollock Pines.

For weeks the wildfires in Northern California — which have so far burned more than 1.3 million acres of land — have mostly skipped across sparsely populated areas and have not required mass evacuations. But the Caldor fire, which began east of Sacramento over the weekend, has changed that equation. As of Wednesday evening, the uncontained blaze had forced about 23,000 residents of El Dorado County to flee or prepare to leave their homes, the governor’s office reported. Nearly a third of those evacuation notices came on Wednesday in a space of less than six hours. The overall number of people under evacuation orders or warnings statewide stood at more than 35,000 people as of Wednesday night. That included more than 7,000 residents affected by the Dixie fire, the second-largest blaze in California’s recorded history. The Dixie has so far burned more than 662,000 acres over four counties since it emerged in mid-July. 

PLACERVILLE, California — Millions of acres of national forest in Northern California are being closed because of dangerous fire conditions that already have sent a score of blazes raging through the area and destroyed hundreds of homes. The U.S. Forest Service announced Thursday that beginning on Aug. 22 it will close nine national forests from near Lake Tahoe at the Nevada border on the east all the way west to Six Rivers National Forest, which stretches north to the Oregon border and contains more than 1 million acres of land alone. The Eldorado National Forest already had been closed because of the Caldor Fire, which gutted the Sierra Nevada town of Grizzly Flats this week. The uncontained blaze had destroyed well over 100 square miles (259 square kilometres) of land.

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.