A vegetation fire that broke out in the Borax Lake area of Sulphur Bank Road was quickly contained by a combined force from the Lake County Fire Protection District (LCFPD) and California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention (CDF) on Sunday, Aug. 20 after it had burned five acres.
LCFPD Chief Charlie Diener said that six engines, plus a helicopter and a tanker, responded to the incident. “We hit it real hard and had it contained in about an hour and a half,” Diener said.
No cause for the fire has been determined and Diener said there is no search for a cause going on at this time.
It was the 10th vegetation fire in Lake County since June 30. Countywide, a little more than 1,200 acres have burned during an unusually hot and dry summer.
In addition to the frequent small-acreage blazes, smoke from the many vegetation/forest fires further to the north has continued to linger in and around the county.
Many of the Northern California forest fires were touched off by a July 23 lightning storm.
“The lightning came through on the night of the 23rd and fires were discovered on the 24th and some even later,” said Peggi Lawrence, assistant public information officer for Six Rivers National Forest, which runs from Mendocino County through Del Norte County. “It hit pretty hard. Six Rivers had 15 fires going on at one time. Some were small, a half-acre to an acre and others were a couple of hundred acres.”
Forest fires that have multiple hot spots are called “complex fires.” Earlier it was believed the Orleans complex fire at Six Rivers, with 800 firefighters involved in the effort to contain it, would burn more than 26,000 acres. Lawrence said that estimate has since been reduced.
Contact John Lindblom at jlindblom@record-bee.com.
