By Madison Smalstig
Crews have contained 40 percent of a 340-acre wildfire in Clearlake ― a blaze that began Sunday afternoon and temporarily triggered evacuations for almost 3,400 residents, according to fire officials.
On Monday, at press time, 155 firefighters assigned to the blaze, dubbed the Lake Fire, will try to strengthen control lines established the previous day by air and ground resources and will put out hot spots and clear the areas inside perimeter lines, according to the Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit. Crews will utilize 11 engines, six hand crews, three water tenders and one bulldozer.
Cal Fire is still assessing how many total structures were damaged or destroyed during the blaze. The cause has not been determined and no injuries were reported. According to Jason Clay Cal Fire spokesperson, one outlying building was destroyed and one other was impacted. There was also an injury to a firefighter who had to be transported to a local hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Agencies assisting included Colusa County, Lake County resources and Sonoma County.
The fire was reported about 2:20 p.m. of Eastlake Drive near Oak Street, just southwest of Bald Mountain. Two structures were reportedly involved early on in the blaze, Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit spokesperson Jason Clay said.
Within an hour, flames had spread up and over the ridge. Forward progress was stopped at about 6:15 p.m.
Evacuation orders were sent before 4 p.m. for zones CLE-E123, CLE-E126, CLO-E113 and CLE-E135 — an area that extends from Olympic Drive north to Highway 20 and Sulphur Bank Road and is bordered to the east by Highway 53 and to the west by Clear Lake and Carter Lane, according to Genasys Protect. Hundreds of homes are located around and west of Eastlake Drive alone.
Just over 60 residents in two zones to the west of Highway 53 — CLE-E124 and CLO-E109 — were placed under evacuation warnings. Over in the Northshore, patients from the Hilltop Recovery Services were temporarily evacuated to their location still under construction in Lucerne.
According to Daylen Roberts, clinical director, this is the fifth time since the Valley Fire in 2015 that the staff and patients have been evacuated due to a fire related emergency, the last time during COVID in 2020. Roberts said they were treating it like a camping trip for the 40-50 patients, “Something different than the usual routine” he said, as a number of vans and staff vehicles parked outside the facility with staff members directing incoming residents and updating their families on the status of the fire.
The four evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings by 5:20 p.m. All warnings were lifted about two hours later.
Cal Fire Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit sent 15 engines, five bulldozers, four hand crews, three water tenders, two helicopters, six air tankers and one tactical aircraft to the scene. Other agencies involved in the response include the Lake County Fire Protection District, South Lake County Fire Protection District and a Colusa County task force.
Engines were assigned to protected multiple structures that were threatened by flames.
The fire approached the burn scar for the July 2015 Rocky Fire, which stretched across 69,636 acres.
About 680 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers in and around Clearlake were without power early Sunday night due to four failures.
Three power outages occurred between 2:45 and 3:22 p.m. One failure affecting 336 customers, some of which were located within a zone ordered to evacuate, began about 20 minutes before the Lake Fire was reported.
As of 7 p.m., power was restored to all customers but 14 located immediately near where the fire began. By Monday morning, all power was back on for the area.
“Around the time that the Lake Fire started, PG&E received a request to deenergize an overhead distribution line from Cal Fire to ensure the safety of firefighters working in the area,” said PG&E spokesperson Megan McFarland. “About 330 customers were deenergized around 2:45 p.m. Later that evening at 6:17 pm., we got the safety clear from Cal Fire and we were able to reenergize that line and restore power to those customers.”
McFarland added another 14 in the area also lost power due to damage to a PG&E pole caused by the fire. The outage started at 3 p.m. and once PG&E was able to repair the pole we restored those customers at 11:44 p.m.”
More acres have burned in the past three days than in all of July within Cal Fire’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit, according to graphics posted by the agency. Last month, 81 fire starts scorched a total of 188 acres.
You can reach Staff Writer Madison Smalstig at madison.smalstig@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @madi.smals.
Record Bee staff writer William Roller contributed to this report.
