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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WEED, Calif. (AP) — A fast-moving wildfire in rural Northern California injured several people Friday, destroyed multiple homes and forced thousands of residents to flee, jamming roadways at the start of a sweltering Labor Day weekend.
The blaze
dubbed the Mill Fire started on or near the property of Roseburg Forest
Products, a plant that manufactures wood veneers. It quickly burned through
homes, pushed by 35-mph (56-kph) winds, and by evening had engulfed 4 square
miles (10.3 square kilometers) of ground.
Annie
Peterson said she was sitting on the porch of her home near the Roseburg
facility when “all of a sudden we heard a big boom and all that smoke was just
rolling over toward us.”
Very quickly
her home and about a dozen others were on fire. She said members of her church
helped evacuate her and her son, who is immobile. She said the scene of smoke
and flames looked like “the world was coming to an end.”
Many places
in the area were also without power. About 9,000 customers, many of them in
Weed, were hit with electrical outages shortly before 1 p.m., according to
electric power company PacifiCorp, which said they were due to the wildfire.
Allison
Hendrickson, spokeswoman for Dignity Health North State hospitals, said two
people were brought to Mercy Medical Center Mount Shasta. One was in stable
condition and the other was transferred to UC Davis Medical Center, which has a
burn unit.
Meanwhile, a
second fire that erupted a few miles north of the Mill Fire near the community
of Gazelle had burned 600 acres (243 hectares) acres and prompted some
evacuations.
Gov. Gavin
Newsom declared a state of emergency for Siskyou County and said a federal
grant had been received “to help ensure the availability of vital resources to
suppress the fire.”
California
is in the grip of a prolonged drought and now a brutal heat wave that is taxing
the power grid as people try to stay cool. Residents have been asked for three
consecutive days to conserve power during late afternoon and evening hours when
energy consumption is highest.
Scientists
say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three
decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more
frequent and destructive. In the last five years, California has experienced
the largest and most destructive fires in state history.
Southern
California saw two large fires break out earlier in the week. The last
evacuation orders for those were being lifted around the time the Mill Fire
started midday Friday. Flames spread fast and about 7,500 people were under
evacuation orders that covered the small city of Weed and surrounding areas,
which are about 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of San Francisco.
Olga Hood
heard about the fire on her scanner and stepped onto to the front porch of her
Weed home to see smoke blowing over the next hill.
With the
notorious gusts that tear through the town at the base of Mount Shasta, she
didn’t wait for an evacuation order. She packed up her documents, medication
and little else, said her granddaughter, Cynthia Jones.
“With the
wind in Weed everything like that moves quickly. It’s bad,” Jones said by phone
from her home in Medford, Oregon. “It’s not uncommon to have 50 to 60 mph gusts
on a normal day. I got blown into a creek as a kid.”
Hood’s home
of nearly three decades was spared from a blaze last year and from the
devastating Boles Fire that tore through town eight years ago, destroying more
than 160 buildings, mostly homes.
Hood wept as
she discussed the fire from a relative’s house in the hamlet of Granada, Jones
said. She wasn’t able to gather photos that had been important to her late
husband.
Willo
Balfrey, 82, an artist from Lake Shastina, said she was painting Friday afternoon
when her grandson, who is a member of the California Highway Patrol, called to
warn her of the fast-spreading flames.
“He said,
‘don’t linger, grab your computer, grab what you need and get out of the house
now. It’s coming your way.’ So I did,” Balfrey said.
She grabbed
a suitcase full of important documents, as well as water and her computer,
iPhone and chargers, and headed out the door.
“I’ve
reached the philosophy that if I have all my paperwork, what’s in the house is
not that important,” she said.
She stopped
to get her neighbor and they drove to a church parking lot in Montague, where
about 40 other vehicles were also parked.
Rebecca
Taylor, communications director for Roseburg Forest Products based in
Springfield, Oregon, said it is unclear if the fire started near or on company
property. A large empty building at the edge of company property burned she
said. All employees were evacuated, and none have reported injuries, she said.
The plant
employs 145 people, although not all were on shift at the time, Taylor said.
“We’re just
devastated to see this fire affecting the community in this way,” she said.
Containment of
the Route Fire along Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles increased to 56% and it
remained at just over 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) , a Cal Fire
statement said. On Wednesday, seven firefighters working in triple-digit
temperatures had to be taken to hospitals for treatment of heat illnesses. All
were released.
In eastern
San Diego County, the Border 32 Fire remained at just under 7 square miles (18
square kilometers) and containment increased to 65%. More than 1,500 people had
to evacuate the area near the U.S.-Mexico border when the fire erupted
Wednesday. All evacuations were lifted by Friday afternoon.
Two people
were hospitalized with burns. Three homes and seven other buildings were
destroyed.
Rodriguez
reported from San Francisco, where Associated Press reporter Janie Har
contributed. AP reporters Stefanie Dazio and Brian Melley in Los Angeles also
contributed.