Survivors flee ‘hellish firestorm’
Fresno County blaze traps campers — brave copter crews save hundreds
FRESNO — Saul Hernandez heard the fire was on the other side of the mountain, so the heavy smoke and crimson sun didn’t bother him much Saturday at the popular Mammoth Pool Reservoir in Fresno County.
But by the afternoon, he saw flames higher than the treetops whipping around the lake. The one route in and out was burning, and trees were falling across the roadway, trapping campers.
Hernandez, a 26yearold Los Angeles resident on his first camping trip with his buddy, abandoned their campsite, tent and car and jumped into the water, wading waist deep as the monster Creek Fire gobbled up trees and brush.
“The smoke and debris was just coming out of nowhere and hitting us. We tried to cover our eyes and mouths
and duck, but it was difficult to breathe,” Hernandez recalled as he stood with two pairs of shoes slung over his shoulder outside a Fresno evacuation center. “It felt like we were sitting in an oven.”
Then help came. Two helicopter crews from a Chinook and a Blackhawk — pilots donning night vision goggles — braved the darkness, smoke, ash and heavy winds to land nearby, evacuating 214 people and 11 pets in six trips. Twenty campers, some with burns and broken bones, had to be hospitalized. Two were seriously injured, Army National Guard Col. David Hall said.
Madera County Sheriff Tyson Pogue said a Chinook took 65 people on its first trip, and as conditions degraded, they piled 100 people on board for a second trip, fearing they could not return again.
“By a stroke of luck, they were able to get back a third time and get the last people,” Pogue said. A small handful of stragglers remained, including a couple who turned down the helicopter ride, he said.
The fire, even among this state’s recent recordsetting blazes, left first responders aghast at how swiftly it ballooned to more than 73,000 acres after starting Friday. It crossed the San Joaquin River and devoured Sierra National Forest wildland devastated by drought and bark beetle infestation.
By Sunday, with the Creek Fire raging, the state set a new record for most acres burned in California for one year, eclipsing 2 million acres, almost the size of Puerto Rico. The previous record was 1.96 million acres in 2018. Cal Fire began recording in 1987.
The scariest part, said Lynne Tolmachoff, a Cal Fire spokeswoman, is that the worst months are yet to come.
“It is a frightening thought. We’ve had bad years before, but this is different,” she said. “And we’ve just hit September. September and October have historically been two of our worst months.”
The National Weather Services issued a red flag warning, in effect until late Monday, for an area of California that includes the Creek Fire. It cited “hot and dry conditions with locally gusty winds.”
Sheriff Pogue called the Creek Fire a “hellish firestorm,” made worse by the vulnerable, diseased forest. The global pandemic didn’t help, either: Since the shelterinplace health orders, Pogue said the Sierra National Forest and its recreational areas have seen unprecedented crowds, including many people who would normally visit nearby Yosemite National Park — the southern part of which is also threatened by the blaze.
“It’s like Fourth of Julysize crowds up here every day of the week,” Pogue said.
Some got trapped Sunday by the fastspreading flames. Alyssa Flores, a correspondent with Fresno’s ABC affiliate, tweeted Sunday afternoon: “Shaver Lake Marina surrounded in flames. Our @ABC30 crew has been told we cannot exit the marina parking lot.” An hour later, she was escorted out by a Cal Fire crew, with flames burning beside the highway.
Similar harrowing tales emerged from Mammoth Pool Reservoir on Saturday.
“We saw the fire get to the lake and start pushing toward our side,” Hernandez recalled, the whites of his eyes red from smoke as he paced around the Fresno Convention and Entertainment Center, a COVID19 backup medical facility turned into a Creek Fire evacuation site. “It was spreading so fast. We just got caught up in it. It kind of felt like a movie, but at the same time, I was visualizing everything around me. It was so intense.”
Hernandez was plucked from the lake on the last helicopter ride.
Jon Miller, a former Army National Guard helicopter aviator out of the same Stockton base as the Chinook CH47 crew, said flying in those conditions, with the wind and fire and darkness, is “extremely hazardous.”
“That’s a very highrisk mission,” Miller said. “This was an extraordinary thing that those people did.”
Jerber and Ana Maradiaga were camping at the reservoir with their son and nephew Evan Rivas, of Los Altos. They heard of the fire Saturday, packed up their car, and tried to escape along the one road out. The traffic was stopped, as Pogue said trees toppled.
They parked in the dirt lot near the water, along with other campers, and braced. Someone from a neighboring car lent them masks and blankets soaked with lake water. As the fire raced by, they watched in horror, wrapped in the wet blankets.
“The kids were panicking,” Ana Maradiaga said.
“We thought we were going to die,” her husband, Jerber, said as they stood outside the Fresno convention center.
Evan’s father, Henry, drove Sunday to pick the family up. As a Chronicle reporter spoke to the Maradiagas, Henry sprinted to his son and the pair embraced.
“I talked to my son and asked about the fun parts of the camping and the helicopter ride,” Henry said. “I wanted him to focus on the positives, instead of reflecting on the horror.”
Sonia Portillo was on a camping trip with more than 10 family members, and once they heard the fire had jumped the San Joaquin River, they packed up and left. She was able to drive out of the reservoir with her boyfriend and stepsons, but the rest of her family had to get evacuated by helicopter.
“I was just so worried that they weren’t going to get out of there,” Portillo said. “I don’t know what I would do without my mom.”
At that moment, she spotted her mother walking out of the convention center and raced to give her a hug — “It’s all OK!”
By Sunday, the Creek Fire continued its march northward. Yosemite National Park issued a fire advisory south of Chinquapin, including Wawona, which warned residents of a possible evacuation.
Meteorologists and fire experts marveled at the satellite images and photographs of the wildfire.
“Yet more severe pyroconvective activity on the #CreekFire plume today. Lightning continues to be observed periodically, as well as strong localized rotation that could give rise to ‘pyrotornados.’ The extreme behavior on this fire is ... something else,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said on Twitter.
Sheriff Pogue said they’ve prepared for a fire in the area for years, removing dead trees along roadways and critical infrastructure, digging in firebreaks, but the Creek Fire threw everything out the window.
“I’ve lived in the area for more than 40 years,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”