LAKE COUNTY — As if on cue, yet another fire broke out on Thursday in south Lake County just as California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) personnel were working on wrapping up an earlier blaze.
The newest fire, in the location of The Geysers, was projected as “a major one” by CDF Fire Captain Specialist Chris Vallerga. It was first reported in the early afternoon Thursday, just hours after the CDF announced containment of a 132-acre blaze about three miles south of the town of Lower Lake.
More than 30 acres were reported burned by the fire in The Geysers area by 2 p.m. Thursday.
The Geysers fire and another smaller conflagration reported in the Lucerne area were the third and fourth to be ignited this week and the fifth and sixth in a one-month period.
Vallerga, whose 30 years of firefighting experience has principally been in the Lake and Napa county areas, said that this has been one of the “more active Julys” in terms of fire activity in the region.
The cause of the south-of-Lower Lake fire, which is expected to be completely extinguished at 6 p.m. today, was traced to a lighted cigarette tossed from the window of a southbound vehicle by someone in the passenger”s seat. The cigarette wound up in a “bed of fuels” (dried weeds) that Vallerga compared to flashpaper.
“We need to put the word out to people not to chuck their cigarettes out the window,” Vallega said as he revisited the blackened ground cover alongside Highway 29 resulting from the flames of what has been labeled the “Murphy Fire” because of its proximity to Murphy Springs. The fire burned from Murphy Springs Road south to Twin Lakes Road.
The Murphy Fire was confounding to firefighters, who had difficulty estimating how much area it would burn before arriving at the ultimate figure of 132 acres through plotting it by helicopter.
“They (firefighters) thought they were going to stop it and hold it on the road,” Vallerga said. “It would have been about a 20-acre fire if held by Murphy Springs Road.”
Such optimism was reinforced by the fact there was no wind.
But trucks going down Highway 29 at 60 miles mph create their own wind, and, said Vallerga, “it just blew this thing out like somebody shot it with a shotgun.”
Soon after CDF aircraft reported that the fire was sheeting. “And that”s not good when it does that. It takes off like gunpowder,” said Vallerga.
Winds of 3 to 5 mph from the south pushed the fire up the hill in the late afternoon.
The sheeting, columns of smoke and plumes of fire caused estimating firefighters to err on the side of a more spacious fire than it finally became.
One told the Record-Bee that the fire had reached 400 acres. But that estimate came from observing the fire at ground level.
“You”re not really sure where the fire”s at when you”re a one-dimensional firefighter,” said Vallerga. “When I got here I looked at the smoke column and thought this thing has a potential of going to 1,000 (acres).”
The cigarette butt that touched off the fire still had an ash and was found after Vallerga and others worked the scene for eight hours.
It will go to a laboratory for DNA analysis and be kept there for a maximum of five years. But unless it was tossed by someone with a criminal record it most likely will not find a match.
CDF and Clearlake Fire Department battled the Murphy Fire from 1:30 p.m. into the night in 100-degree heat and 90-percent humidity. As was the case with the Hidden Valley Lakes subdivision fire on Sunday, they were able to bring the fire under control before it reached structures — in this case at Twin Lakes — which could have been devastating, Vallerga said.
A system called “defensable space clearing” was used to protect structures.
On Thursday, seven engines, two bulldozers, four crews and a helicopter were battling the Murphy Fire.
Contact John Lindblom at jlwordsmith@mchsi.com.
