McKinney Fire West of Yreka Swallows Over 78 Square Miles, 400 Structures Threatened
Redding Police officer assisting in Siskiyou County as the McKinney Fire advances. [Photo from the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department]
Just after midnight in the early hours of this morning, the fire was mapped at 51,468 acres or over 78 square miles. “Persistent drought conditions have caused extremely dry, receptive fuels which have resulted in rapid fire spread,” the Klamath National Forest Service reports.
Yesterday at noon, the McKinney Fire was about 10 miles west of Yreka. Just after midnight during the last mapping, the fire had cut that distance in half and was about five miles west of Yreka. However, most of that progression was made during the day and overnight “[l]ttle progression was observed on the fire’s edge closest to Yreka City,” according to the Klamath National Forest Service.
There is 0% containment and 400 structures are threatened.
[Photo from the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department]
“New lightning fires are still being detected, including one overnight at the top of Doggett Creek north of the main fire,” a press release from the Klamath National Forest Service states. “Crews will be assessing and addressing these fires as they are detected.”
According to the Klamath National Forest Public Affairs Office speaking on the McKinney Fire and on the China 2 Fire,
Activity on both fires moderated into the evening as a heavy smoke inversion settled over the fire. The fire became active again at about midnight. Crews were actively engaged in structure protection overnight, especially in the Klamath River area. Little progression was observed on the fire’s edge closest to Yreka City.Priorities for today are to continue structure preparation and protection in the Highway 96 corridor, and around the communities of Fort Jones and Yreka City. Firefighters continue direct suppression tactics when safe to do so and are looking at opportunities to build contingency lines should they become necessary. Containment lines from previous fires are being reopened even as firefighters work on the active edge of the fire.
We’ve gathered the most important information about the McKinney Fire and organized it below for our readers.
Compelling Images:
Crazy footage of firefighters escorting residents out of the McKinney fire last night. The fire pushed hard into the evening. Today, due to visibility, tankers have been diverted to the nearby China 2 fire. 🙏to a subscriber for this footage #mcKinneyfire #cali #fire #california pic.twitter.com/SDUQzncztM
— TheHotshotWakeUp: Podcast (@HotshotWake) July 30, 2022
The #McKinneyFire in far Northern California is displaying exceptionally extreme and erratic fire behavior tonight, producing a nearly 50,000-foot (!!) pyrocumulonimbus plume as it spreads rapidly.
This is the upper echelon of extreme fire behavior at night. #CAwx #CAfire pic.twitter.com/kAdPQ8fsbA
— US StormWatch (@US_Stormwatch) July 30, 2022
The Plan:
The Weather:
According to the National Forest Service, “The area remains in a Red Flag Warning today for a threat of dry lightning and strong outflow winds associated with thunder cells. These conditions can be extremely dangerous for firefighters, as winds can be erratic and extremely strong, causing fire to spread in any direction.”
The Roads:
A portion of Highway 96 is closed due to the fire. Prior to traveling, please check Caltrans Road Conditions at https://roads.dot.ca.gov/ for the most current road conditions.
The Maps:
- Operations Map –to see details either zoom or click on the map and download a pdf.
- KMZ Map–Zoom for detail or for 3D imagery, click on the map and download a file that connects with your Google Earth program.
Evacuation and Help Information Including Community Meetings:
Multiple Evacuation orders and warnings remain in effect. For current updates on evacuations, visit the Facebook pages of the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office and Siskiyou County Office of Emergency Services. Additional evacuation information and map can be found on the Zonehaven website. A shelter has been established at the Weed Community Center, 161 E Lincoln Ave., Weed, CA 96094.
UPDATE: McKinney Fire Burns Multiple Homes and Vehicles [Photos of the Destruction Left Behind]
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There’s a video in The NY Times taken driving along the Klamath river in highway 96. Trees torching😭 and fire crossed the river.
What I don’t see are pumps in the river fighting this fire.
Maybe I’m naïve but there’s a lot of water and access to it. And the flows could be increased from the dams.
I don’t think you’re wrapping your head around just how massive this fire is. The energy being released is mind boggling. A few pumps isn’t gonna cut it.
We’ll be lucky if this is out before the winter rains get the job done.
Oh yes it’s mind blowingly huge now. But it started small.
I’ve been looking at the Rogue River/Siskiyou National Forest where only 70 some odd acres have burned in 2020 and 2022 fire seasons because she of their heavy aggressive initial attacks.
Same with the Hoopa Res. Heavy aggressive initial attacks.
Human supplied water doesn’t do much good on a big forest fire. Good for protecting structures… but not putting out the fire.
Only thing is to try and guide the fire into a place where there isn’t much fuel. Fire breaks, rocky soils etc. The there are the pyro-cumulus outflow winds. Deposit flaming embers a couple miles from the fire.
Translation: This fire might go on for awhile.
Doubt the drought? Doubt climate change?
Is no fire season. All year is fire season…
Yeah there’s a drought mainly caused by the population doubling and resivor acreage staying the same for the past 40 years.
Suppose we dam every river & creek, and the population keeps doubling?
Birth control & border control are what we need, but few dare broach the taboo.
So everything keeps getting worse.
There is no sustainable work-around for unsustainable over-population.
Yet we keep encouraging people on welfare to have more kids by giving them more money for every kid they have. At some point it will be a self correcting problem.
And yet they band abortion and now they want to band birth control. It’s not welfare that is the problem it’s people that make laws that prevent people from having access to birth control and abortion. They are forcing people to have more kids.
A powerful supplementary water source waiting to be tapped is a little known underground river in Humboldt County.
Back in the seventies some engineers were looking at it and spec’d the project for pumping it to Santa Rosa. The numbers back then were close to good, but not quite there.
Border control? Your dog whistle is screaming.
Border control, anti immigrant rhetoric, is code for RACISM.
[edit]
[edit]
There is no sustainable work-around for unsustainable over-population.
Without massively unsustainable immigration, the US population would be headed in the direction of sustainability. ZERO “hate” is required to acknowledge that FACT.
Your inability to answer the question is obvious — suppose we dam every river & creek, and the population keeps doubling?
There’s no science that supports your desire to close the border…only hardcore fundamentalist right wing propaganda that disinforms & misinforms people to “believe” there’s data to support it.
Rational question:
Suppose we dam every river & creek, and the population keeps doubling?
Wokester response: “RACIST!!”
I only hear your divisive rhetoric.
Have anything constructive or do you just want to beat on the heads of people you don’t actually know?
You wokesters only hear what you want to hear.
You can only respond to a legitimate question with the dopey buzzwords you been trained to regurgitate.
Actually there is. We have enough room. We have enough food. What we don’t have is enough power to even sustain our current population. We cannot add anymore people without upgrading our power grid.
What? We just import people to work corporate jobs in order to keep our own wages depressed but we can’t even provide power or infrastructure for those people? That’s not compassionate Non-fiction, that’s abuse.
They are also taking entry level jobs that our kids need in order to gain work experience.
You sound a bit out of touch with reality on the ground.
Nearly every economist flatly disagrees with you.
Historically low unemployment and immigrants are taking entry levels jobs from kids?
Baloney!
T**** waxed the visa program for tech workers and the tech industry hasn’t had enough workers ever since.
There aren’t enough Americans that want those jobs, or are willing to gain the skills, to fill the need.
Repeating the words of right wing talking heads doesn’t make their bullshit any more fact based…just highlights the absurdity.
Most of out power issues are rooted in waste.
Nearly everyone is wasting gobs of electricity and gas.
It’s not that we don’t have enough energy, it’s that the grid itself is old and decrepit…thus can’t handle the level of demand from 4-10p.
My house uses less than 1/2 the electricity & gas of the average CA home; and less than 1/3rd the water.
If people improved the efficiency of their homes & changed their use habits, “scarcity” wouldn’t be such a problem.
Same old excuse, whether Right-wing or Left-wing:
“If only we did things my way, humans could keep multiplying and there wouldn’t be a problem!”
You do not understand the consequences of exponential growth.
I don’t think you understand the term “exponential growth”
“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
— (https://npg.org/presidents-column/presidents-column-awesome-power-exponential-growth.html)
“A single sheet of paper doubled only forty times would create a pile of paper 241,000 miles high – reaching from the earth to the moon.”
You are being exceedingly presumptuous and have no clue what I think.
Chasing ghosts you are.
OK, let’s just take your word for it.
You think exponential growth is a “ghost” (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary).
No, you have completely conflated who responded to what post & what those responses referenced, hence the chasing “ghosts” reference, in that it seems you just want to fight with anyone and call people wokesters, who you aren’t actually listening to.
If you think I spoke to your overpop issue then listening and comprehension are issues you should seriously consider confronting head on.
There’s no point to attempting any further clarification.
The area where this fire is raging is one of the least populated areas of the US, excluding Alaska…
Siskiyou is far less pop dense than Humboldt.
So overpop is pretty irrelevant to this fire.
Stop trying to stuff words into my and other peoples mouths.
It’s atrociously out of line, feeds pure conflation, AND only shows how impossible it is for you to hear anything but what YOU are saying.
Maybe your whole point is to fuck civil discourse?
That’s the clear message you’re getting across.
I simply present FACTS about catastrophic population growth, and calmly ask relevant questions.
Such as — name one problem we face that would be made better in the long term with more people?
Your anger is a result of your inability to actually answer those questions.
Have a nice day!
🙂
Not angry, nor do I disagree about overpopulation, IN GENERAL.
BUT, you are being exceedingly presumptuous, jumping to conclusions about what anyone thinks, and have no clue, otherwise, what I think.
Stop trying to stuff words into my and other peoples mouths.
It’s atrociously out of line, feeds pure conflation, AND only shows how impossible it is for you to hear anything but what you are OBSESSIVELY FIXATED UPON saying.
Maybe your whole point is to fuck civil discourse?
That’s the clear message you’re getting across….*******
You said “There’s no point to attempting any further clarification.” But you keep saying stuff anyway, getting increasingly angry & potty-mouthed — while claiming I’m the one who’s angry.
🙂
You still haven’t answered legitimate questions I’ve posed. Oh yes, you (finally) claim “nor do I disagree about overpopulation, IN GENERAL.” But you sure don’t act like it.
I show massive evidence that nothing else will work unless we reduce our population to a sustainable size. Rather than dealing with that FACT, you clearly resent me for calmly & rationally stating it.
Your reaction is what is known figuratively as “shooting the messenger.” However, if we were in the same room together and you had a gun, I wonder how figurative it would be.
I realize even mentioning over-population is a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.
Kym,
Great website, but…
You edited out a snarky (but civil) paragraph I posted — in response to a snarky comment directed at me.
Are insults only allowed if they’re woke?
Kym,
Thank you for correcting that oversight.
Sorry. I see things from a dashboard that shows all the comments from all the posts in reverse time order (the most recent on top) and sometimes I miss a comment.
Cheers!
We need a border but we don’t need birth control. Contraception is a great option for responsibility sake, but the fact of the matter is, we’re in a world population crisis. We are 8 billion strong and approaching 9 billion rapidly. Our planet could sustain double that but due to resource mismanagement and over-regulation we are going to hit about 9 billion people worldwide and then our population is going to decline rapidly. Just look at birth rates world wide. We have an aging population the world over.
In a vastly over-populated world, declining birthrate are EXACTLY what we need.
Over-breeders should stay home and deal with their own problem, rather than being rewarded for swarming & ruining lands with low birthrates.
Name one problem we face that would be made better in the long term with more people?
Show me a dam that ever made it rain.
Take a look at satellite photos of California reservoirs.
Any questions?
Soil moisture and yearly rainfall are the primary interelated factors leading to drought conditions & designations.
it’s not a forest fire. it’s trees in transition , strictly temprary, c’mon man
Am about15 miles nw of willow creek, a huge gray cloud from the west just rolled thru dropping about 5 minutes of rain. Its headed towards mckinney fire,no thunder or lightning, just a bigblobgray cloud, fingers crossed it heads over there and drops moisture and nothing else ❤🤞
Climate change or arson ?
Climate change, fuel buildup, lightning.
Climate change!
Read the article. It tells you how it started
Regardless of how the fire started, it would never have spread like this 50 years ago. The extreme drought and significantly higher than historical “normal” temperatures give this fire, and so many others the fuel and the power to spread so fast, resist traditional firefighting methods, create its own weather, and wreak the havoc this fire and others we’ve seen increasingly often. It’s climate change!! Even if the fire was started by dragging chains, tossed cigarettes, arsonists, careless campers, or blue bolts of power fired at the earth by Venusian lizardmen. And neither curbing immigration or birth control, is not going to solve this problem, either.
Your first sentence was spot on because lumber companies and forest service agencies used to clean up debris after logging sections and burn the slash and undergrowth after the fall rains. Then along came the “environmentalists” who shut down logging and wanted wild lands pristine for some three-toed slug or some shit.
Now, since no one, including the gubmint rakes their land or even attempts to maintain it, there’s a shit-ton of fuel everywhere and we’re in the middle of a drought that California has been prone to for eons. Nature’s gonna do what She does. Controlled burns. Her way. Ever ask yourself why the Native Americans burned sections of their hunting grounds every year?
It ain’t climate change. It’s just weather.
Climate (not just weather) has changed, sometimes abruptly, since long before humans.
Whether we’re accelerating it or not is somewhat moot. It happens with us or without us.
For millions of years, humans never numbered even one billion — that didn’t happen until the early 1800’s.
Now, a mere 200 years later, humans are about to pass 8 billion (& counting). The climate has been (mostly) exceptionally favorable for humans since the last Ice Age. We have a hard time realizing there’s no guarantee that can’t change.
Meanwhile, ever more billions are competing for ever-dwindling “resources” (water, oil, land, housing, etc.), driving the 6th mass extinction in the 500,000,000 million year fossil record of life on Earth. It’s a pretty nasty legacy for our species.
And all the while, multiplying humanity multiplies…
[[TYPO CORRECTION]]:
Meanwhile, ever more billions… driving the 6th mass extinction in the 500 million year [not “500,000,000 million year”] fossil record of life on Earth.
Seems you didn’t notice, but long before the USFS was forced to follow NEPA rules put in place by a repuclican congress, logging co’s have been leaving behind vast piles of slash and hardwoods on public lands.
You don’t have to go very far up most any skid road to find one.
I can point you to dozens of multi acre, 15-30′ tall slash piles in the 6 Rivers and Klamath NFs that have been there since 1987 fire salvages and back to the 70s.
Many of the piles are quite close to forest towns and neighborhoods: Coffee Creek Estates, Callahan, Etna, Cecilville, Sawyers Bar, Forks of Salmon, Somes, Happy Camp, Orleans, Weitchpec, Willow Creek, Salyer, Weaverville, and to many of the more remote inholdings around the region.
Underbrush had to be cleared before logging, not after…it’s how loggers are able to safely maneuver around trees while cutting.
This is why most spray defoliants…to save $.
Remember the USFS used to do full scale aerial spraying of most logging regions…so they could easily clearcut
USFS lands are not managed to be pristine, that reference applies to Wilderness Areas, most of which have been effectivelly managed as Wild & Primitive areas since quite a while before Teddy Roosevelt was pres.
Your picture of the “good ole” days of logging isn’t very accurate.
And there’s a LOT more than the above details and weather to our climate problems.
The idea that radical climate change isn’t occuring is a radically absurd idea…and lends towards the deep end of willful ignorance, wearing blinders, or worse.
70’s to 1987…
You didn’t notice that commentor I responded to said “50 years”. Mid 70’s would be “50 years”.
Hope you’re enjoying our weather!
Well what are you waiting on? I thought your savior already made it clear, all we need is to grab some tools and start raking the forests clear….thats sure to keep our fires under control. You live in a world of delusion.
No, I don’t. Delusion is the fabrication of climate change being espoused.
Delusion is listening to Chicken Little.
Start raking.
Fewer people, fewer carbon emissions (along with every other demand people put on the environment).
If you’re still in school you have an excuse for not making this simple connection. Today’s “education” promotes an agenda that cynically sabotages ecological science while pretending otherwise.
Don’t let anyone dictate what you can see & can’t see.
I blame China
Nice article, Kym.
This fire is a monster…
I really appreciated “The Lookout” YouTube video.
Hopefully we will get rain, and it will help…
Thanks again…
Zeke rocks!
Zeke Lunder, that is, as:
The Lookout has a very thorough and calm delivery, guiding the public (us who will listen) through tactics and strategy, triumphs and failings of forest and fire management. He’s gently nudging us to embrace fire as a tool, to reintroduce fire to the landscape, tactically and strategically.
Pay attention! He’s bound to teach us something.
You are my hero RHBB I’ve been blind up here until now.
That video from The Lookout is well worth 24 minutes. Great perspective, lots of info.
Prayers for safety to everyone in the area, and especially the firefighters!
Yes.
Thanks to Kym for posting the video from The Lookout.
On that website, the most in-depth, thoughtful, and funny perspective on the fire crisis I’ve seen: “PyroFiction Hopepunk Biketopia” https://the-lookout.org/2022/07/21/pyrofiction-hopepunk-biketopia/
Hope they get this contained soon.
In the meantime, don’t live on land that the US government accidentally burns because Joe won’t have your back. Especially if you’re native, Hispanic or Indo-Hispano.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/after-starting-new-mexico-fire-us-asks-victims-pay-2022-07-31/
Wasn’t it awesome when Trump sent in the Army of Forest Rakers, ahhh, the good ole days. Make America Rake Again.
Isn’t it awesome that this shithole state burns every year because Newsom is too busy eating at the French Laundry, paneling to illegal border crossers, criminals and the nerds… errr! Progressives for their votes instead of governing and making the state safe for the tax payer? Now, go clean up some debris to protect your neighbors. You ain’t got time for internet trolling.
You grasp the difference between “federal” & “state” managed lands?
What can a govenor do to change how the USFS manages land?
Or do for a fire on USFS & BLM land?
The Governor can require privately owned parcels are raked. Finland mandates it. Ain’t hard
Finland does not mandate it.
I sure hope this is sarcasm
Best start doing some google research. Finland has indeed legislated forest management.
Now, go help your neighbor rake something if your land is clear. Trump knew what he was talking about.
People didn’t understand Trump then when he was sane but not articulate and the left was insane enough to double down on it. The media made money ridiculing him without bothering to ask what he meant. It was much more appealing to poke fun at him than gain any understanding. Now the left is still insane and Trump is now insane and everyone else is caught in between.
“Finns take good care of their forests using methods that copy the forests’ natural life cycles. When trees grow old they are regenerated, meaning old, mature trees are cut down and new seedlings are planted to replace them.
Some forests regenerate naturally when adult trees seed new plants. Others are sowed or planted. Finnish law demands that new trees be planted after every harvest.”
Frankly Finland still clear cuts and does “rake the forest floor” to replant trees in ways that would be horrifying in the US.
http://www.projectfinland.org/protecting-the-forest-in-finland/
https://ym.fi/en/wood-building
https://forest.fi/article/great-leap-in-efficiency-of-finnish-wood-supply-system/#469fc58d
I’ve been in Finland’s forests — they benefit greatly from a small human population with a conservation ethic.
Unfortunately, they still suffer from fragmentation.
Here is the latest satellite image of the weather
Winds are south westerly here along the coast.
Really good map for wind direction etc. Just input zip code.
Interactive.
https://www.ventusky.com/
Looks like the winds are blowing that fire right at Yreka.
Here is the NASA image at 3:00 pm.
‘This was really aggressive fire behavior’: Over 100 homes destroyed as the Oak Fire tears through Mariposa County
Containment surpassing 50% has now allowed CalFire damage inspection teams the chance to assess the thousands of properties in the fire’s path.
No date, no source, no link = no information.
Just a quotation mark from someone, sometime, to someone.
Let it burn. Nature will take care of it. When you run out of fuel the fire dies. Just like in the good old days.
Tell that to the people of Paradise, Redwood Valley, Potter Valley, Redding, Middletown, Cobb, Greenville, Happy Camp, etc…
and now Seiad Valley, Yreka, Ft Jones are on the brink.
Might be a few people who disagree…
We keep hopping from one “natural” disaster to another, and truth be told, it just keeps getting worse.
I don’t agree with Bill Maher about everything, but he recently made a convincing case for why it only gets worse:
— (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=HB97iwcm_Qc)