Wildfire at Highland Springs
A huge column of smoke that appeared near Kelseyville shortly after 3 p.m. Monday, July 31 signaled that another local wildfire had ignited.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) and local firefighters responded to a fire off Highland Springs Road. Within a few hours the fire had grown from 50 to 200 acres. At 8:45 p.m. Monday officials at the CDF command center reported the fire was 50-percent contained.
About 80 firefighters were on scene along with five engines, four dozers, three strike teams and an unspecified number of aircraft.
The county”s Public Works Depeartment issued an advisory in the late afternoon warning that, because of the wildfire, Highland Springs Road was closed to all traffic — with the exception of emergency personnel — where the pavement ended. The public was urged to avoid the area.
Discarded cigarette ignites fire on edge of SR 29
A forest and grassland fire that began on the edge of State Route 29 near the Twin Lakes Road intersection in Lower Lake quickly spiraled out of control on Wednesday, July 26.
As if on cue, yet another fire broke out on Thursday, July 27 in south Lake County just as California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) personnel were working on wrapping up the 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 the 132-acre “Murphy Fire.” Seventy-five acres had burned by 12 a.m. on Friday, July 28, when the Geysers fire was fully contained.
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 Murphy Fire was expected to be completely extinguished by 6 p.m. Friday. The cause of the south-of-Lower Lake fire 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 State Route 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 C Street at the Twin Lake entrance.
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 State Route 29 at 60 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, July 23, 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.
