San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
FIRE CREWS MAKE GAINS IN HEMET
Mosquito fire in Sierra Nevada continues unabated
Rain generated by the remnants of Tropical Storm Kay off the Southern California coast helped fire crews slow the spread of the deadly fire burning southeast of Hemet on Saturday, allowing authorities to reduce some of the evacuation orders from mandatory to voluntary, and allowed ground crews to reach 40 percent containment of the fire.
The blaze, which had grown to more than 28,000 acres Saturday, has destroyed two dozen structures and threatened more than 10,000 homes and other structures. But firefighters have made progress and said they expected full containment on Monday.
Fire officials warned, however, that Northern California communities are still at risk for a heat wave and wildfire conditions, and there is the potential for lightning today in the Northern Sierra. In the foothills east of Sacramento, the Mosquito fire spread to more than 33,700 acres Saturday, threatening more than 5,000 structures in Placer and El Dorado counties and blanketing the region in smoke.
“We’re not seeing a corresponding drop in fire activity at this point,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Issac Sanchez said.
California firefighters said Saturday they have so far been unable to corral any part of the Mosquito fire, which has prompted evacuations in communities including Foresthill and Georgetown.
Jonathan Richards, a church pastor, told the San Francisco Chronicle he moved to Georgetown a year and a half ago aware that wildfires had charred mountain communities, but didn’t want to think about it happening when he got the dreaded evacuation message this past week. He took his two dogs and a cat but said he left behind nine chickens because he didn’t have a way to transport them.
“You never dream that it’ll find your little area of paradise,” he said.
In Riverside County, the onset of stormy weather prompted incident commanders to pull Cal Fire aircraft out of the Fairview firefighting operation late Friday morning, according to reports from the scene.
But by Friday evening, officials said that winds were much less intense than feared. And overnight, steady rain helped firefighters control the blaze.
“There was fairly heavy rain overnight — probably the brunt of what Tropical Storm Kay was going to bring — over the area,” said Rob Roseen, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency.
Saturday afternoon, state fire officials said that a privately owned helicopter that they had contracted to help with firefighting efforts crashed as it was landing at a nearby airport. The three people on board, a pilot and two firefighters, sustained moderate injuries and were taken to a hospital. Roseen said he did not have information about what may have caused the crash.
California wasn’t the only state dealing with wildfires Saturday.
There were 18 large fires burning in Oregon and Washington on Saturday, leading to evacuations and targeted power outages in Oregon as the challenge of dry and windy conditions continued in the region.
According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, there are nearly 260,000 acres of active, uncontained fires and nearly 5,000 people on the ground fighting them in the two states.
The blazes are among more than 90 active fires across the country, including in Montana, California and Idaho, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
In Washington state, the Goat Rocks fire, south of Mount Rainier National Park, was started by lightning and has led to the closure of U.S. Highway 12 and the evacuation of neighborhoods east of the city of Packwood. Evacuations were also issued for several communities in Cowlitz County in response to the Kalama fire in Gifford Pinchot National Forest southwest of Mount St. Helens.
Another mountain pass on U.S. Highway 2 was closed Saturday because of the Bolt Creek Fire, which sparked evacuations for 300 to 400 homes and was dropping ash in Everett and blowing smoke into the suburbs of Seattle.
A red flag warming in Washington remains in effect through tonight, meaning that high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds will complicate fire conditions.
In Oregon, the Clackamas County Sheriff ’s Office announced the evacuation order of campers from Milo Mciver State Park late Friday night, which is about 24 miles southeast of Portland. Early Saturday morning, residents in several communities west of the park were told to be ready to evacuate.
In hopes of lessening the risk of more fires, Portland General Electric initially halted power to about 30,000 customers in 12 service areas but that number increased to more than 37,000 by Saturday. By late Saturday afternoon that number had dropped back down to about 30,000. Pacific Power shut down service to more than 7,000 customers in a small community on the Pacific Coast, where a wildfire burned two years ago, and in pockets southeast of the state capitol of Salem. The number of Pacific Power customers without service increased to 12,000 on Saturday.