[UPDATE 9:03 p.m.] Lightning Fire Day 4

The Emerald Counties continue to battle some of the worst wildfires in our history. Nature isn’t helping though. Lots of lightning could be headed our way. Call 911 if you spot a blaze without fire crews on site.

Here’s what the National Weather Service tweeted this morning. (Stay updated with tweets from our area, including some of the latest news from the fires, on the tweet feed embedded in our site. Scroll down.)

————————————————————————————-

Here’s what we know about the Humboldt Lightning Fires:

Many of the residents of the little village of Blocksburg (see photo of the town below) spent the night watching the fires around them. Cal Fire had burned a backfire up Conley Creek to help protect the town.

Blocksburg

Blocksburg in the haze of yesterday’s smoke. [Photo by Kristin Windbigler]

Kristin Windbigler was one of the residents who spent the night watching the flames around her town. She wrote,

This morning I can see flames back behind the cemetery on the South Kneeland, but I think there are ground crews over there to fight them. I can also hear trees collapsing. I am hesitant to say the strategy worked because it’s been so hard to understand what’s going on the past few days, but I think the situation seems improved? Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Tony, the Raider-loving firefighter who is stationed in Blocksburg, was manning the pump on the backfiring done to protect the small town. Here’s what he tweeted,

Crews Firing Conley Creek Drainage Near Blocksburg Tonight, Do Not Be Alarmed

——————————————————————————————

The Rocky Fire in Lake County is expanding quickly. Mike McGuire, our State Senator, tweeted this,

———————————————————————————–

Here’s news from the Fork Fire in Trinity County:

There will be two public community meetings held today, 08/02/2015 in Hayfork and Hyampom.
The first public community meeting will be held at the Hayfork Community Church at 1:00pm. The church is located at 7450 Highway 3 in Hayfork.
The second public meeting will be held at Hyampom Volunteer Fire Hall in Hyampom at 4:00pm.

Go here for more on the Fork Fire
———————————————————–

Road Closures: Hwy 36 is closed from the Humboldt/Trinity County line to the Junction of State Route 3 in Susanville due to the wildfires.

road closures

Red triangles show where the roads are closed. [Information from Caltrans here]

——————————————————————————————————-

Here’s what we know about the MENDOCINO Fires

UPDATE 9:05 a.m.: 

Click on this link for an update on the Trinity County Fires.

UPDATE 9:50 a.m.:

Looking for ways to understand where the fires are located. Here’s an excellent map tool to look closely at where individual fires are in relation to landmarks and a very simple explanation of how to use it. 

UPDATE 10:02 a.m.:

tk

Terri Klemetson from KMUD attended this morning’s briefing at Blocksburg and shared with us the following information:

The Humboldt Lightning Complex fires burning in southern Humboldt have consumed approximately 2,300 acres, that’s according to Incident Commander Tom Nix as of this Sunday morning’s 7 am briefing.

Firefighters will continue to mop of dozens of fires that sparked during Thursday’s lightning event, meanwhile crews will attack 5 fires in the now-designated Branch I, those fires are burning between 30-100 acres each.

Meanwhile, Branch III, just a couple of miles north of Branch I, includes the 400 acre fire near Blocksburg.  Calfire crews will continue to monitor the firing operation that was conducted Saturday night, keeping the fire within the perimeter control lines.  The rest of Branch III is in patrol status, Calfire and local agency crews will be checking on all contained fires to make sure they are not re-igniting.tk1

The Infrared Mapping located 4 hot spots from the North to South on the map they are: 173 acres north of Willow Draw Creek and south of the Eel River; 119 acres just north of and touching Winchester Ridge; 396 acres burning Hamner Flat east; and 166 acres burning near Steelhead Road.

The Blocksburg area is under an evacuation warning, if anyone needs shelter the Alderpoint Volunteer Fire Station is open to the community.

 

 

 

Now you can listen to the interview:

UPDATE 10:35 a.m.:  Want to help?  Here’s a page that has sprung up in support of the firefighter’s and the communities affected by the incidents:

UPDATE 10:57 a.m.: Click this link to watch Cal Fire describing the dire situation facing the town of Blocksburg yesterday.

Capture

UPDATE 1:01 p.m.: The Mad River Complex information has just been updated. The map is below. Click here to read.

Capture

UPDATE 1:16 p.m.: The latest information on the fires threatening Denny. The map is below.

Click here to read and see a larger version of the map.

Denny.

UPDATE 2:09 p.m.: Scanner traffic says, two new fires. One unclear where. One in East Benbow. Bottom of Tooby Ranch. The fire crews are trying to get a helicopter. The Benbow is called 1-66 if you are listening on the scanner.

UPDATE 3:21 p.m.:

UPDATE 9:03 p.m.:

Press release provided by the Trinity County Sheriff:

TCSOAs  a result of extreme fire danger and evacuation orders in the Hyampom Area, if you are a resident of and are evacuating, you will need to leave the area using Hyampom Road into Hayfork as Road 60 & Road 47 are closed due to fire activity.

 

Earlier Chapters:

Facebooktwitterpinterestmail

Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules

Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

58 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Ullr rover
Guest
Ullr rover
8 years ago

Does anyone have links to DETAILED online maps? Something at the USGS quad level of the fires?

Ullr rover
Guest
Ullr rover
8 years ago
Reply to  Ullr rover

I need a map of the Underwood/burnt ranch area fires. My home is within a mile of these blazes, but I’m up in Washington for a wedding…… trying to figure when I need to bug out and get home…

MMom
Guest
MMom
8 years ago
Reply to  Ullr rover

Kym has them on her website. Limited, but excellent. The Mad River Complex isn’t featured, however.

Ullr rover
Guest
Ullr rover
8 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Thanks, much better info.

Fives
Guest
Fives
8 years ago

I thought Susanville was southeast of Mt. Lassen on Highway 36?
I love Krisitin’s photo of the Blocksburg Church. Take care and be safe!

Sally
Guest
Sally
8 years ago

Ullr rover, I’ve been keeping eyes on InciWeb, Calfire, and YubaNet both on Facebook and online, but haven’t seen any detailed maps yet. 🙁

Dan Barton
Guest
Dan Barton
8 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Hi Kym, thanks for your *excellent* coverage of these fires.

There’s a valuable resource available, GeoMAC, from the U.S. Geological Survey for wildland fire support that includes satellite data, detailed topo map baselayers, and current fire perimeters (if mapped… most of these aren’t yet). The viewer requires a little bit of tweaking to provide you with useful data: you’ll need to 1) navigate to http://www.geomac.gov/viewer/viewer.shtml then 2) zoom in to our region then 3) add the MODIS thermal data layer using the tool on the left. That’ll yield an image that looks like this the image posted below.

Note that the MODIS thermal data is *satellite* data. It does not indicate exact areas burned, just pixels (and thus places) that appear hot to a satellite. Don’t make life or limb or property decisions based on this stuff, it’s a tool that is no substitute for on-the-ground safe observations by pro firefighters.

-Dan Barton

flevitan
Guest
flevitan
8 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

Map publication is not a priority for incident teams until they have reasonable intel and have begun to attend to the highest priority threats to life and property. With the magnitude of the current situation, and insufficient forces in place to begin to even size up the situation well, that won’t happen right away. If you’re not in the immediately affected area, stay put and let the firefighters work.

Uti
Guest
Uti
8 years ago

Great photo by Kristin Windbigler. Thanks for sharing it.

axl rose
Guest
axl rose
8 years ago

I’ve been going to wildlandfire.com and using the map that is on the homepage. If you click the banner at the bottom of the map it will bring up a full screen map. From there you can zoom in on your location and find real time (almost) information. In my area it shows a few red dots and I can click on them. A white information window pops up and on mine it says something like 1 of 3 and gives the name of the complex it is associated with. I then clicked the play button or right arrow and it went to 2 of 3. Click it again and it took me to 3 of 3. This page gives information about the specific dot that was clicked on. In my area it tells me that it was a hotspot located by satellite on such and such a time on such and such a date. There are 19 of them (red dots) in my area. I’ve been looking at this for a couple of days and the dots are moving around depending on the way the fire/hotspots are moving. Good luck.

Dan Barton
Guest
Dan Barton
8 years ago
Reply to  axl rose

Those red dots are useful for indicating what *was* on fire during the last MODIS satellite pass that’s been processed, but they’re not useful for indicating what is currently on fire or what previously burned.

trackback

[…] August 2: The fire coverage continues here. Earlier […]

Eastside
Guest
Eastside
8 years ago

Somewhere around 30 fire trucks have passed by my place heading out to Blocksburg area so far. Numerous pickup trucks with equipment, con camp trucks, semis hauling dozers . YAY !!

ED Denson
Guest
ED Denson
8 years ago
Reply to  Eastside

Yea!

MaryAlice
Guest
MaryAlice
8 years ago
Reply to  ED Denson

YEAH!

Eastside
Guest
Eastside
8 years ago

I hear that the Steelhead fire has reached the river.

ED Denson
Guest
ED Denson
8 years ago
Reply to  Eastside

Stephanie, who lives out the Steelhead road, says that a fire line has been cut by the dozers at the Steelhead fire. No idea precisely what that means, and whether anyone is monitoring the fire line. That fire worries me more than the others, but really I don’t know enough to know if I should be worried about one of the other 6 fires in the Alderpoint area, instead.

Dawn
Guest
Dawn
8 years ago
Reply to  ED Denson

Any more info on the steelhead fire? Has it jumped the river??

Benbow101
Guest
Benbow101
8 years ago
Reply to  Dawn

No

liz
Guest
liz
8 years ago

What supplies are needed at the Redway camp?

SoHum Latino
Guest
SoHum Latino
8 years ago

AP resident.Just took these pic facing out from the AP Legion Hall.There are occasional flames you can see. Plane and chopper flying around it,but no water drops. We need more resources out this way!!

ED Denson
Guest
ED Denson
8 years ago

Just got a call from Al Horn who was at the APVFD just now. They told him the Steelhead fire has jumped the river and is now burning on the south side as well as the north. That’s unfortunate because Alderpoint is on the south side of the river, too. So is the Rancho Sequoia subdivision. It is estimated that about 700 people live in “greater Alderpoint” all on the south side of the Eel River. Al said that he was told at the APVFD and state fire fighters were fighting the fire with some helicopter support. It will get dark here in about 90 minutes which will slow or stop the fight, I would think.

SoHum Latino
Guest
SoHum Latino
8 years ago

Here are some pics of the fire before it jumped to the south side of the Alderpoint area. Local fire crews where quick on the scene and we able to put it out. 1 fire truck still in the area just to monitor any other jumps or resparks. THANK YOU to the hard work and efforts of the local firefighters.👍🙌🚒

Eastside
Guest
Eastside
8 years ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

A cat managed to cut a break down the hill part way. The line of flames you see in the pic is a back fire they lit. A chopper was able to dump water for a few hours today but it’s nowhere near out.

long time rancho resident
Guest
long time rancho resident
8 years ago

i’m so thankful that someone out there fighting the fires thinks that rancho sequoia and alderpoint folks are worth saving! thank you all so much for your efforts at getting the steelhead fire under control after it crossed the river.

Levi
Guest
Levi
8 years ago

Fire burning on north east side of pratt

Levi
Guest
Levi
8 years ago

North east side of pratt right now

Levi
Guest
Levi
8 years ago

Fire in blocksburg

Levi
Guest
Levi
8 years ago

And two more above blocksburg

ED Denson
Guest
ED Denson
8 years ago

Alderpoint Update: The spot fire on the south side of the river at Steelhead was quickly put out. It may have been collateral damage for a backfire they lit to keep the fire from reaching the river. APVFD and a helicopter, possibly others. I went up to Grower’s Leap, a good vantage point about 1 mile south of Alderpoint on the Alderpoint road to get a view of the Steelhead fire area. There were some other lookers too, but nothing but smoke visible. Bruce went out the Steelhead road and said he saw flames on the ridge across the river – the fire (1.43) is not out but the immediate menace to Alderpoint is over. I did not see any evacuatees from Blocksburg at the AP Fire Hall, but they are ready for any who show up. John Earp and Chief Robin Craig were there having dinner. Robin said the ALVFD was dedicated to protecting Alderpoint and were sticking around. That was very comforting. We are often on our own out here so it is nice to know that our own resources will be here when we need them. I keep thinking of that comment from Post Mountain.

Adam
Guest
Adam
8 years ago

ED Denson’s comment from 8:48 is very accurate. That little fire was at my place. Burning debris from the back burn floated over and sparked it. It took off and was growing incredibly fast. Thanks to the incredible action of friends, neighbors, APVFD, and CalFire (with inmate crew) it was extinguished very quickly but it could have been a disaster for our whole community. This mountain is bone dry. I can’t be sure, but I think things may be turning for the better on the Steelhead fire. I think they have a fire line containing it and a second nearby fire further downstream to the inside (north) of the big river bend. That whole mountain (north of river) seems to be on fire. Fortunately it seems to be burning understory much more than canopy. As long as it does not jump the river or the fire line, I think it will be contained to an uninhabited area. I can’t even express the depth of my gratitude to all those who helped us here. My thanks to them and to all who are helping with these fires. There are many heroes out there.

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]

trackback

[…] Day Four (August 2) […]