Weather aids fight in Bear Creek blaze
With rain in the forecast and growing containment, some evacuations lifted
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY — Residents were trickling back to their homes Thursday as firefighters continued corralling the Bear Fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains, an effort boosted both psychologically and physically by rain in the forecast.
The fire had consumed more than 300 acres of dense, hard-to-access trees and brush but was 30 percent contained by Thursday afternoon, according to Cal Fire. The work of the nearly 1,000 firefighters battling the blaze was evident by the homes that were gradually being reoccupied.
“Things have cleared
up a lot,” said John Woodruff, 39, who has returned to his Boulder Creek home. “They’ve been doing a pretty amazing job keeping it under control.”
Because of that progress, evacuation orders were lifted for several communities that were forced to flee when the fire broke out late Monday night, starting with homeowners in the Las Cumbres and Skyline Boulevard communities, aswell as areas south of Bear Creek Road.
That’s a dramatic shift from just a couple of days ago, when residents weary from news reports of the deadly North Bay fires suddenly found themselves having to pack and run. Cris Adam, a Bear Creek Road resident, remembered smoke filling her house early Tuesday, a fewhours after the fire started on the adjacent Bear Creek Canyon Road.
“The smoke was so thick. The ash was raining on my car,” she said. “I thought for sure my house was going to be gone.”
On Thursday, she could be seen telling firefighters in the area, “Thank you for saving my house!”
Evacuation orders were still in place for areas including Bear Creek Canyon Road, Deer Creek Road, Rons Road, Dons Road and their offshoots. Two Red Cross evacuation centers, at Lakeside Elementary School in Los Gatos and at the Zayante Fire Station in Felton, will remain open until all residents are allowed to return home.
As of Thursday evening, no new firefighter injuries were reported, after seven firefighters suffered injuries ranging froma brokenwrist to burns in the first two days of firefighting. The destruction tally remained at four structures east of Boulder Creek, including at least one home.
And as long as evacuation orders are in place, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office will continue patrol- ling the fire-affected areas, a task which gained some resonance after a Boulder Creek man was arrested on suspicion of looting one of the evacuated homes.
The Bear Fire continues to burn as fire resources throughout the state are stretched thin, focused primarily on the weeklong series of fires in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Yuba counties, which have killed at least 42 people, destroyed 6,000 homes and burned more than 200,000 acres.
The precise cause of the Bear Fire has not been announced, though fire investigators and the Sheriff’s Office continued examining the known origin point, a property at the end of a long dirt driveway off Bear Creek Canyon Road marked by a litter of charred vehicles, a bulldozer, tires, garbage and burned-out appliances.