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CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – The massive, multiagency effort to put out two major wildland fires east of Clearlake Oaks continued on Monday, with an incident command center set up at the county fairgrounds and hundreds of evacuees allowed to return home after leaving their residences Sunday.
Hundreds of firefighters from agencies around Northern California were at work on the Wye and Walker fires, which Cal Fire combined into the Wye Fire Complex on Monday.
The fires began minutes apart on Sunday afternoon. The Wye was located near the intersection of Highway 20 and Highway 53, with the Walker Fire located close to Walker Ridge Road, the scene of a 2008 fire that burned 14,500 acres.
By nightfall, the Wye Complex had scorched another 1,000 acres, for a 6,000-acre total, with 25-percent containment, Cal Fire said. No cause has yet been given.
The California Emergency Management Agency reported Monday that the state had secured federal funds to assist with the firefighting effort.
Also on Monday Cal Fire Incident Management Team 4 assumed command of the incident.
That morning the team set up its incident command center at the Lake County Fairgrounds on Martin Street in Lakeport.
They were setting up tents, coordinating resources and organizing the complex effort of containing and extinguishing a wildland fire complex.
Due to the incident command center’s presence, Lakeport Speedway’s weekend races were postponed.
A stark landscape
Lake County News and other media were allowed access into the fire area on Monday.
Highway 20 east of Highway 53 – which at that time was still closed to the public, with only firefighters moving along it – was lined by a blackened landscape, punctuated by the silhouettes of charred trees.
Dust devils spun columns of ash on the stripped hillsides.
In one area along the highway, several vehicles had burned near a residence. A number of stretches of guardrail were burned, with the metal rails missing and scorched uprights remaining. Some highway signs were damaged; a two-legged sign remained standing with one of its uprights partially missing.
In another spot, melted utility wires sagged down from burned poles. Cal Fire said that both power transmission lines and fiber optic cables had been threatened in the fire.
Some of the 358 firefighters assigned to the complex were staging near the Landrum Ranch along Highway 20 Monday afternoon.
Two helicopters – one from Cal Fire plus a Black Hawk – were dropping buckets into a pond and making water drops on a ridge above the highway. They then made their way over to Spring Valley to make drops there.
A VLAT – very large air tanker – also was brought in to drop retardant, according to officials.
On the ground, some of the fire agencies that had sent resources and were present at the staging area included Cal Fire, Northshore Fire, Windsor, Healdsburg, Rincon, Geyserville, Sacramento Metropolitan, Truckee, Contra Costa and Calistoga.
Major developments during the day included the evening opening of Highway 20 – which had been opened and closed again on Monday morning while firefighting operations continued – and an evacuation order for the Spring Valley community was lifted by nightfall.
Standing their ground
Spring Valley residents had been under a mandatory evacuation order since Sunday evening, with 480 structures threatened.
California Highway Patrol and Lake County Sheriff’s deputies assisted with the evacuations, according to Sgt. Steve Brooks of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
As deputies were evacuating residents, the fire was burning on both sides of the road, Brooks said. He said the day shift deputies were held over and the night shift was called in early to assist.
CHP and sheriff’s deputies maintained a presence at the entrance to New Long Valley Road on Monday in order to prevent unauthorized individuals from going into the valley.
Many of the residents had gone to a Red Cross shelter set up at the Highlands Senior Center in Clearlake.
However, not everyone left.
A trip to the Spring Valley Pantry, the community’s store, revealed a little group of holdouts who decided it was better to stay put than risk leaving, despite bits of falling ash from the fires.
One of them was Mike Anderson, a 17-year Spring Valley resident.
“At one point it was blowing right at us,” he said of the Wye Fire.
However, the wind shifted, and Anderson and others felt safe enough to stay. He estimated 20 percent of the valley’s residents remained at home, some of them concerned about thefts.
Anderson lived in the valley the last time it was evacuated – during the 1996 Fork Fire, which burned more than 83,000 acres on the Mendocino National Forest.
He said he didn’t leave then, either, and he felt more threatened by the Fork than the Wye.
Anderson’s wife, however, had gone to Clearlake to run errands on Sunday and hadn’t been allowed to return.
Lake County Animal Care and Control Director Bill Davidson and his staff stopped at the store to wait for community members who were being allowed in, three at a time, to remove pets and livestock or to feed the animals.
He and his staff had worked to evacuate animals on Sunday and then on Monday began transitioning to the work with residents.
By about 4 p.m. Monday, he estimated that more than 30 residents had come in to be escorted to their homes, where they had 15 minutes to gather their animals and anything else that they needed immediately.
At that point, Davidson said he had no idea how long they were to continue with the evacuations.
Several miles down the highway at the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge, dozens of people, their pets and livestock were staged, waiting for a change in conditions.
Some went inside where there was air conditioning, cold water and snacks, and a big screen television. There also were large amounts of donated food from local businesses to help feed the evacuees.
At around 6 p.m., Highway 20 was reopened to single-lane traffic led by a CHP pilot car.
Brooks said the traffic control measures were implemented due to hazards such as trees that had fallen across the highway and which had not been completely removed, and smoke that was causing visibility problems.
An hour after the highway was reopened, Cal Fire announced that evacuations for Spring Valley – including Old Long Valley Road and New Long Valley Road – had been lifted, with residents able to return after 8 p.m.
Making progress on the incident
Cal Fire said firefighters made progress on the fire Monday, despite challenges that included extreme fire behavior, difficult terrain, spotting conditions, low reality humidity and the very high summertime temperatures.
Firefighters carried out a successful firing operation, with crews continuing to build fire containment lines and provide structure protection, Cal Fire reported. Hot temperatures and peak electrical demands were putting a strain on the current power capacity.
Reports from the scene on Monday night indicated a very active, challenging fire situation, with the fire crossing over Bear Valley Road and across Bear Canyon.
Due to fire conditions and firefighter safety, Cal Fire said hunting has been restricted 10 miles north and south of Highway 20, between Highway 53 and Highway 16.
In other fire-related news, Lake County Air Quality Management District reported that air quality conditions were expected to be unhealthy again on Tuesday due to the smoke from the fire, which was creating a haze in the air basin.
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