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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — On Wednesday night, as firefighters continued their work to fully contain the Cache fire that burned in Clearlake and Lower Lake, the city of Clearlake declared an emergency in response to the incident.
City Manager Alan Flora emailed the declaration to council members, local officials and others including Lake County News shortly after 9 p.m., less than nine hours after the fire began.
Flora said staff will ask the council to ratify the declaration at its Thursday night meeting, when it will be added to the agenda as an emergency item.
The proclamation says that in addition to the 80 acres burned, the fire destroyed 60 homes, damaged Pacific Gas and Electric infrastructure, and resulted in “significant private property damage,” the full extent of which is still unknown.
The document also states that the majority of Creekside Mobile Home Park and portions of Cache Creek Mobile home park were destroyed, which causes concerns for pollution due to their proximity to Cache Creek.
Speaking Wednesday night from the incident command post at Lake Street and Tish-A-Tang Road, Lake County Fire Chief Willie Sapeta — one of the first on scene who was acting as incident commander overnight — said the damage assessment was still underway so he declined to estimate the number of structures destroyed, anticipating he would have firm numbers on Thursday morning.
He said most of the fire’s damage was centered on the south side of Dam Road, just east of Wilkinson Avenue.
Late Wednesday, the fire remained at 80 acres with 20% containment. Sapeta explained that it was only 20% because there was still a lot of fire burning within the perimeter, with spot fires continuing to kick up into the night.
“We’ll be hitting it all night and tomorrow,” Sapeta said.
During the course of the day, the Cache fire drew a huge response from agencies around Lake as well as four other counties, Sapeta said.
Fire grows fast, displacing thousands
The fire was first dispatched at 12:36 p.m. in the area of Sixth Avenue at Cache Street.
Initial reports stated that it was the result of a commercial vehicle fire that had spread into vegetation.
Follow-up reports from the scene would put the fire between Fourth and Sixth avenues, between Cache and Wilkinson avenues.
Sapeta confirmed that dispatch’s initial report was that it was a commercial vehicle fire, adding that the investigation is ongoing.
Based on the initial information, the Cache fire appears to be the second vehicle-caused fire in less than a week that had threatened a Lake County community. The Coyote fire on Friday, which burned 127 acres and some outbuildings, began due to a vehicle rollover, as Lake County News has reported.
Sapeta said when he arrived — radio reports put him on scene within minutes — the fire was an acre in size and “running hard at me,” and was “ripping pretty good” in 20 mile per hour winds.
“It had such a rapid rate that we couldn’t keep up with it,” said Sapeta.
The first units on scene reported multiple RVs in the area on fire and an extreme rate of fire spread.
Reports from the scene had it growing from Sapeta’s initial size estimate of an acre to up to 25 acres within five minutes, with Sapeta calling for evacuations to begin in the immediate area — specifically, for Wilkinson on the north side of Dam Road — shortly after his arrival.
At 1 p.m. Wednesday an online meeting of the Abandoned Vehicle Abatement Service Authority — which includes city and county representatives — was called to order.
District 1 Supervisor Moke Simon, who chairs the committee, handed over the running of the meeting to vice chair, Clearlake City Councilman Russell Perdock, saying he wanted to travel to Clearlake to get eyes on the fire. Simon said he’d spoken with Sapeta, who told him that firefighters were “getting their asses handed to them.”
Sapeta told Lake County News that, all told, 28 engines, five dozers, 10 overhead or management personnel, seven tankers, five helicopters and nine water tenders would respond to assist.
Firefighting resources came from fire agencies all over Lake County, as well as from Colusa, Marin — which sent two hand crews and an engine — as well as Mendocino and Sonoma counties, Sapeta said.
The Clearlake Police Department, California Highway Patrol and Lake County Sheriff’s Office were part of the response, evacuating the residents — in some cases running from door to door to get people out, according to radio traffic.
Sapeta said a local water company stepped up to help, with the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport and the county of Lake also sending water tenders from their respective water agencies.
Evacuees flee to safety
As the fire grew, evacuation orders for several zones in the county’s Zonehaven system were issued. Some county residents reported to Lake County News that they had issues using the Zonehaven website and that it crashed at one point.
Sapeta estimated 1,600 residents of Clearlake and Lower Lake were under evacuation orders or warnings at the height of the incident.
Of those, about 1,000 residents were still evacuated late Wednesday, Sapeta said.
An evacuation shelter was established at Kelseyville High School less than two hours after the fire started.
Sheriff Brian Martin told Lake County News on Wednesday night that 32 people were registered to stay there at that time.
Among those evacuating on Wednesday afternoon were two women, who identified themselves as Liz and Vicki, who Lake County News photographer Gemini Garcia encountered at the bus stop at Walmart.
They had been dropped there by an ambulance to wait for a ride to the evacuation center.
Liz said her home was burning as she left. She said she felt numb.
Many people who evacuated waited at Walmart, where employees gave them cold bottles of water.
People waited with pets in cages, not knowing when they would be able to return home.
Rescues, injuries and recovery
Two injuries have been confirmed during the incident. One was an elderly burn victim at the Cache Creek Mobile Home Park who was seriously injured. An ambulance was dispatched to the park at 1:46 p.m. Sapeta said the victim was later flown out of the county.
Then, just after 8:15 p.m., incident command reported that one firefighter was being sent to Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital with a minor eye injury. Earlier in the day, the hospital had diverted all medical transports in response to the fire, according to radio reports.
Animal control officials and the Lake Evacuation and Animal Protection, or LEAP, group also were dispatched to the scene due to injured pets and livestock.
North Bay Animal Services reported on Facebook Wednesday that its officers had been responding to welfare calls on animals caught in the Cache fire, showing pictures of injured goats and a dog with singed fur transported to the Clearlake animal shelter for treatment.
Lake County Animal Care and Control said the phone lines for LEAP assistance would reopen at 8:25 a.m. Thursday. Call 707-263-0278 if you need help with animals in the evacuation zones.
Besides fully containing the fire, what’s ahead is more of what Lake County has endured repeatedly over the past decade — fire cleanup and rebuilding.
State Sen. Mike McGuire, who has been a key player in Lake County’s fire recovery, said in a Wednesday night Facebook post that the fire was “simply devastating.”
He added, “We’ll be working hand in hand with Assemblymember Aguiar-Curry, the City, County and neighbors on recovery and debris clean-up in the weeks to come.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
081821 Cache Fire Emergency Proclamation by LakeCoNews on Scribd
