LAKE COUNTY — Kono-Tayee Estates resident Terri Kiplinger said it wasn”t the smoke that awakened her in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, but the light from the blaze that was spreading through grassy oak woodlands on the steep hillside just across Highway 20 from where she lives.
Ray Taglio, a fire chief with Cal Fire, said there were two fires in the same location, the first starting at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night and consuming about a quarter of an acre. It was contained about two hours later when the second blaze ignited, burning between 25 and 30 acres, said Taglio.
He estimated that the fire was contained at around 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, and crews were mopping up hot spots all day until about 8 p.m. that evening.
“The biggest problem last night was that when the fire got 500 feet off of the highway it caught the prevailing west winds, and that pushed it up the hill and kept it moving,” said Taglio. That in combination with the steep terrain caused the fire to move at what Taglio called a “moderate rate of spread.”
Although there were homes on the hillside that could have been affected, Taglio said they were to the west, and the fire tended to move east and up the hill. Taglio reported that no homes or property were destroyed, save for a few fences crews had to cut so they could get to the blaze.
Kiplinger said it appeared to her that the fire was moving downhill.
According to Northshore Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Lou Dukes, that observation may have been attributable to the fact that the winds were changing at that time during the night, complicating crews” containment efforts.
Since Cal Fire doesn”t use aircraft to support fire fighting efforts at night because of the low visibility, ground crews were tasked with putting out the blaze on their own. Cal Fire responded to the first fire with with four engines, a dozer and a battalion chief. A lot of that equipment was canceled, said Taglio, because of crews” quick work.
The second blaze brought five engines, two dozers, two Konocti Conservation Camp crews and a battalion chief, said Taglio. In addition, fire personnel and equipment responded from the Northshore Fire Protection District and South Lake County Fire Protection District, according to Dukes.
Cal Fire crews laid roughly 1,000 feet of hose as part of its containment tactics, which also involved using dozers to cut a line of bare ground around the fire to eliminate fuel and fighting fire with fire, said Taglio.
“A firing operation is where the fire crews light fire ahead of the main fire to eliminate fuel between the containment line and the main fire so the fire doesn”t run real hard,” explained Taglio.
The causes of the two fires are still under investigation by Cal Fire, said Taglio. Dukes said no injuries were reported.
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