Klamath Aug 4 (US): Firefighters have the deadliest and most destructive California fire under control this year, expecting the blaze to remain on hold over the weekend.
The McKinney fire near the Oregon border was contained 10% as of Wednesday night, and bulldozers and hand crews were making progress carving fires around the remainder of the blaze, fire officials said at a community meeting, The Associated Press reported.
The southeast corner of the fire was contained above the Siskiyou county seat in Yreka, which has a population of about 7,800. Evacuation orders for parts of the city and Hawkinsville were reduced to warnings, allowing people to return home but with a warning that the situation remained dangerous.
Officials said about 1,300 residents were still subject to evacuation orders.
The flames did not progress on Wednesday, after several days of brief but torrential rain from thunderstorms that brought in poor cloudy weather.
“That’s a giant sleeping right now,” said Daryl Luz, the unified incident leader on the fire.
Additionally, firefighters expected to completely encircle Thursday a 1,000-acre (404 ha) fire site on the northern edge of the McKinney fire.
The fire broke out last Friday and charred nearly 90 square miles (233 square kilometers) of forest land, drying it up due to drought. More than 100 homes and other buildings were burned and four bodies were found, including two in a burnt car in a driveway.
The fire was initially driven by high winds in front of a thunderstorm cell. More storms earlier this week proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Heavy rain on Tuesday dumped up to 3 inches (7.6 cm) on some eastern parts of the fire, but most of the fire area didn’t reach anything, said Dennis Burns, a fire behavior analyst.
The latest storm raised fears of possible floods and mudslides in rivers. Kreider said a private contractor in a pickup truck who was helping with the firefighting effort was injured when a bridge went out and swept the vehicle. She said the contractor sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
However, Burns said, no weather events were expected over the next three or four days that could trigger the “legs” of the fire.
The good news came too late for many people in the scenic Klamath River village, which was home to about 200 people before the fire reduced many homes to ashes, along with the post office, community center and other buildings.
California and much of the rest of the West are experiencing drought and the risk of wildfires is high, with the worst fire season ever historically underway. Fires have burned in Montana, Idaho, and Nebraska, destroying homes and threatening communities.
Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the past three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and more frequent and destructive of wildfires. California has experienced the largest, most destructive and deadly wildfire in the past five years. In 2018, a massive fire in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains devastated much of the city of Paradise and killed 85 people, the largest number of US wildfire deaths in a century.
A fire in northwest Montana that destroyed at least four homes and forced the evacuation of about 150 homes west of Flathead Lake continued to be swept north by winds Wednesday, fire officials said.
Crews had to be pulled from the lines Wednesday afternoon due to increased fire activity, Sarah Ross, a media officer, told NBC Montana.
Officials said there were fears the fire could reach Lake Mary Ronan on Wednesday evening.
The fire broke out on July 29 on grass in the Flathead Indian Reservation, quickly moving to timber and charring approximately 29 square miles (76 square kilometers).
A moose fire in Idaho has burned more than 85 square miles (220 square kilometers) in the Salmon Chalice National Forest while threatening homes, mining operations and fisheries near Salmon Township.
A massive fire in northwest Nebraska led to evacuations and destroyed or damaged many homes near the small town of Gering. The Carter Canyon fire started Saturday with the merging of two separate fires.
MI