A fast-moving wildfire broke out in the Siskiyou County town of Weed on Friday, forcing the evacuation of more than 5,000 residents, destroying several homes and sending several residents to the hospital.
By Friday evening, the Mill Fire had grown to 2,580 acres, Cal Fire spokeswoman Suzi Brady said, as hot weather blanketed the West and prompted a National Weather Service red flag warning for much of the north of the Sacramento Valley. Fanned by strong winds, the fire has moved beyond Weed to the community of Shastina Lake, where residents were told to evacuate.
“We had some civilians injured and transported to a local hospital,” Brady said. He did not have information on the number of people injured or the extent of their injuries.
Weed Councilman Bob Hall said it looked like “we’ve lost quite a few houses” in the Lincoln Heights section of Weed. “It happened so fast.”
As the fire had turned to the northwest, away from Weed, the people of the region were worried about the damage that might occur. “We have people on the other side of the wind,” said the councilman. “On the other side of the wind, it’s hell.”
No containment was reported as of 6 p.m. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Siskiyou County and announced that the state had secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help Cal Fire and other agencies fight the mill fire
It was the eighth major wildfire to hit far northern California this summer, including the deadly McKinney Fire. The 60,000-acre fire, burning in the Klamath National Forest further west in Siskiyou County, ignited in July and killed four people while destroying 200 structures.
Another wildfire, the Six Rivers Lightning Complex about 70 kilometers to the southwest in the rugged hardwoods of Trinity and Humboldt counties, was still burning after nearly a month. US Forest Service crews were reporting that the fire was 64 percent contained.
While the cause of the mill fire was not known, Weed Mayor Kim Greene said it was believed to have started in the area around Roseburg Forest Products, a lumber mill that suffered large damage in the Boles fire of 2014. A Roseburg spokeswoman confirmed that part of the company’s property was burning, but said company officials did not know how or exactly where the fire started.
The fire was reported at 12:49 p.m. when Cal Fire cameras connected to the AlertWildfire network showed a very large plume of smoke near Weed, a town of about 2,600 located along Interstate 5 , 50 miles south of the Oregon border.
All of Weed, which suffered significant fire damage eight years ago, was ordered to evacuate. Numerous mandatory evacuations were ordered in and around the area, according to the Siskiyou County Zonehaven website. Mandatory areas include the region west of Interstate 5, west of Highway 97, south of Siskiyou and Weed County Highway 12A and the areas immediately north.
Flames and debris are seen at the mill fire near Weed, Calif., Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. A wildfire broke out at a lumber mill near the town of Weed in Siskiyou County on Friday and cause evacuations to a wide area and the closure. Highway 97. Ryan Sabalow rsabalow@sacbee.com
Carrick, a town of about 150 people on the east side of Highway 97 between Weed and Lake Shastina, was also ordered to evacuate shortly after 3 p.m. By 6pm, Carrick appeared to have been mostly spared as the flames burned north and avoided the old fell. farmhouse The mill fire was burning, as of 6 p.m., between Edgewood and Lake Shastina.
Firefighters were battling flames burning through brush and junipers on a hillside at the edge of a Lake Shastina housing subdivision. Firefighters were trying to prevent further damage to nearby homes.
The embers had drifted and fallen on at least five houses that were still standing, but damaged by the flames. The roofs were painted pink after planes had covered the houses in fire retardant.
As crews worked to battle the blaze, first responders found themselves dealing with residents refusing to evacuate their homes, a common problem during wildfires.
One of the first found two people in a house and urged them to leave without success. “I’ll make one more attempt to persuade them to spare their lives, and then I’ll have to leave,” he radioed. Another reported trying to get a man to leave twice, but the resident said he would only do so after finding his cats.
A temporary evacuation shelter was initially set up at the Siskiyou County Fairgrounds, 1712 Fairlane Road, Yreka, which was also used to house evacuees’ livestock and other large animals. Another human evacuation center was set up at the Karuk Tribe Welfare Center in Yreka at 1403 Kahtishraam, according to the American Red Cross.
Evacuations expanded by 2 p.m., as areas around Shastina Lake, Big Springs and as far north as Granada along Interstate 5 were ordered to leave, and again shortly after 3pm to include all of Carrick. Cal Fire said students from Weed High School were bused to Mount Shasta High School for pickup.
A second fire, the Mountain Fire, broke out near the Gazelle Mountain area west of the interstate 5 hours after the Mill Fire started, and firefighters diverted six fire trucks to that area, according to the radio office The mountain fire prompted evacuation notices in two areas: SIS-5203 and SIS-2337.
As of 6 p.m., the Cal Fire Siskiyou unit reported that the mountain fire had burned about 300 acres of timber and was crowning. There was no containment of the wildfire burning about 8 miles southeast of the town of Gazelle.
Brady, the Cal Fire spokeswoman, said the fire had spread to about 300 acres by early evening and was burning through a heavily wooded area.
“We’ve got a mess here,” a Mill Fire dispatcher reported. “We’ll try to break some tankers, but that’s the priority right now.”
Map of the mill fire
This live updated map shows the location of the Mill Fire and satellite heat detection data for hot spots. Click the legend button for more information. iFrames are not supported on this page. Sources: US Department of the Interior, IRWIN, NIFC, NASA, NOAA, and Esri
The Lincoln Heights neighborhood was decimated
Although Weed, a historic lumber town 200 miles north of Sacramento, was evacuated, some residents gathered downtown Friday afternoon as a large plume of smoke rose in the background.
Helicopters dropped water from above. Strong winds were blowing north, away from the city and toward the area where the lava fire burned 26,000 acres northeast of Weed a year ago.
“It never seems to stop,” said Weed resident Scott Payne, 59, recalling the Lava and Boles fires of years past.
Strong winds blowing from south to north were shaking the city’s trees as a dark plume of smoke rose above the Carrick and Lincoln Heights subdivisions, which are separated from the city by the Roseburg mill property.
The flames destroyed most of the homes and melted parked vehicles in the Lincoln Heights subdivision. Some houses there only had their chimneys still standing.
Payne said his son Adam went to look for his belongings at his home in Carrick and reported seeing 50-foot-high flames on Highway 97, a major thoroughfare.
Don Dixon was at Ray’s Food Place in Weed, cradling a puppy in his arms, as he tried to find a way back to his property, though it seemed unlikely given the road closures.
Its site is an undeveloped lot that burned in the lava fire, destroying several vehicles.
He didn’t seem too worried about the fire going to burn down his place a second time.
“There’s no way we have to worry about it burning again,” he said.
Dixon remained calm.
“Fires happen.”
The Mill Fire is seen burning near Weed, Calif., in an image taken from an AlertWildfire fire monitoring camera at Hammond Ranch on Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. Alert Wildfire/Nevada Seismological Lab
Casey Coppi and his father, Robert, stood in Casey’s driveway in Edgewood, watching as flames burned junipers in the hills above a quarter-mile-wide field of grass hay that was green to be watered
The men hoped that the grassy buffer and wind direction would save their home.
Casey Coppi said his wife, Hallie, and their three children had already evacuated with their pets in Yreka, 25 miles to the north. They were stuck in the driveway for several minutes after two cars had a minor accident on the road outside their home, likely due to frantic evacuees trying to escape Lake Shastina, he said.
For now they are staying but they won’t take any chances if the wind starts to blow from the west.
“If that column starts moving toward us, we’d leave,” Casey Coppi said.
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