San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
More evacuations, weather fears as Dixie Fire grows
“We haven’t had any meaningful precipitation. The reality is we’re dealing with ... historically dry fuels.”
Dan McKeague, U.S. Forest Service
The second-largest wildfire in California history grew amid volatile weather Saturday, threatening several communities east of Lake Almanor in Northern California’s Plumas and Lassen counties.
One month since it began, the insatiable Dixie Fire has consumed 552,589 acres and destroyed 1,120 structures, including much of the small Plumas County town of Greenville, according to Cal Fire. Nearly 15,000 more buildings remained under threat.
The huge vegetation fire, which is burning in the remote reaches of Plumas, Tehama, Lassen and Butte counties, remained stuck at 31% containment as fire crews contended with erratic winds and no shortage of dry fuels to keep the fire fed. Fire officials have not given a date for when they expect full containment.
“We haven’t had any meaningful precipitation,” said U.S. Forest Service spokesperson Dan McKeague. “The reality is we’re dealing with such historically dry fuels on this fire” that the possibility of new ignition points remains extremely high.
The Dixie Fire was among nine major fires burning in California on Saturday and among more than 100 burning across the West. Nearly 25,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel were working nationwide. Extreme heat in the Pacific Northwest had fire managers worried about new ignitions.
In California, smoke from the fires drifted across much of the north state. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued an air quality advisory for the region through Sunday, warning of smoky air at mostly higher elevations, including the North Bay mountains, East Bay hills, Diablo Range and coastal hills.
At the Dixie Fire, isolated thunderstorms kept firefighters on their toes and strong gusts battered flames into the footprint of 2007’s Moonlight Fire, which scarred roughly 65,000 acres. The fire was moving east of Highway 89 near Lake Almanor, particularly active at such spots as Keddie Point, Dyer Mountain and Wilcox Valley, where fire crews worked to mitigate the threat to homes by digging dozer trenches and clearing debris.
In some cases, McKeague said, structures were being wrapped in fire-retardant materials and the grounds soaked in retardant to try to keep the fire from expanding by ground- and air-driven embers.
Janesville, a community of about 1,400 people in Lassen County, was another area that firefighters were trying to protect Saturday.
Crews were facing the prospect of lightning strikes and triple-digit temperatures Saturday, but Cal Fire officials said at nighfall that “fire activity was reduced” much of the day.
After a week in which an inverted smoke layer allowed firefighters to get in closer, the possibility of 50 mph winds had threatened to fan the flames and limit progress on the firefight, McKeague said.
“When you get into this level of atmospheric instability ... it tends to take the cap off of the fire,” he said.
The Plumas County Sheriff ’s Office added Genesee Valley, an unincorporated area known for its buffalo and cattle ranches, to a long list of areas under mandatory evacuation orders. The communities of Seneca and Greenville were also on that list.
In Tehama County, Mill Creek, south of Lassen Volcanic National Park, fell under a mandatory evacuation order because of an immediate threat to life Friday.
While fire officials continue to investigate the cause of the Dixie Fire, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has said its power equipment in the Feather River Canyon may have ignited the blaze.
The Dixie Fire is behind only the August Complex in terms of size. Last year’s mega-wildfire devoured more than 1 million acres across seven counties in Northern California’s coast range.
No deaths have been tied to the Dixie Fire, which has destroyed more than 596 homes, damaged 45 more and left three emergency responders with injuries.