Jun 25, 2008 12:56 pm US/Eastern
Fire Crews From Nearby States Aid Calif. Teams
Sacramento Valley Covered In Thick Haze
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ―
Fire crews from Nevada and Oregon have arrived to help California
firefighters battle hundreds of blazes that are darkening skies over the San Francisco Bay
area and Central Valley, causing public health
officials to issue air-quality warnings.
The lightning-caused fires have scorched tens of thousands of acres and forced
hundreds of residents to flee their homes, though few buildings have been
destroyed, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of
Forestry and Fire Protection.
"It's just extremely, extremely dry," Berlant said Tuesday.
"That means any little spark has the potential to cause a large fire. The
public needs to be extra cautious because we don't need any additional
wildfires."
More than 800 wildfires were set by an electrical storm that unleashed nearly
8,000 lightning strikes across Northern California
over the weekend.
The storm was unusual not only because it generated so many lightning strikes
with little or no rain over a large geographical area, but also because it
struck so early in the season and moved in from the Pacific Ocean. Such storms
usually don't arrive until late July or August and typically form southeast of California.
"You're looking at a pattern that's climatologically rare. We typically
don't see this happen at this time of summer," said John Juskie, a science
officer with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. "To see 8,000, that's way up
there on the scale."
The lightning storm struck California
when the state was experiencing one of its driest years on record. Earlier this
month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought and directed
agencies to speed up water deliveries to drought-stricken areas. Many
communities have adopted strict conservation measures.
Areas hit the hardest by the weekend thunderstorm include Mendocino County,
where 131 fires have burned more than 13,000 acres and threatened about 500
homes; Butte County, where 25 fires have burned more than 3,900 acres and
threatened 400 homes; and the Shasta-Trinity Forest, where more than 150 fires
have burned about 8,000 acres and threatened 200 homes.
Firefighters continue to battle the state's largest blaze, a 58,000-acre fire
that began more than two weeks ago in a remote region of the Los Padres National Forest in southern Monterey County.
Spreading flames from the blaze, which was about 66 percent contained, prompted
officials to issue a mandatory evacuation order in the Arroyo Seco area of Carmel Valley
on Wednesday morning.
A separate 8,500-blaze burning in the forest's Big Sur
area was only about 3 percent contained.
The largest nearby fire is the "Walker Fire" which has burned nearly
9,000 acres along the Lake County/Colusa County line. Only five percent
contained, the Walker Fire could grow to 15,000 acres before it is put out, say
authorities. It has destroyed one building and prompted some voluntary
evacuations.
Later today, firefighters expect to reach full containment on the "Wild
Fire," which has been burning along the Napa County/Solano County line
since Saturday afternoon. It has destroyed one building and is threatening 150
others. The latest word from fire officials is that this blaze is 80 percent
contained.
A DC-10 air tanker is being deployed to the fire lines from McClellan Air Base
today. It's the second plane of its kind currently fighting California fires and is capable of dropping
thousands of gallons of fire retardant in a single fly-over.
Even before the lightning struck, California
had already seen an unusually large number of destructive wildfires that had
burned nearly 90,000 acres, compared with 42,000 acres during the same period
last year, according to CalFire officials. The fire season typically does not
peak until late summer or early fall.
"This doesn't bode well for the fire season," said Ken Clark, a
meteorologist in Southern California with
AccuWeather.com. "We're not even into the meat of the fire season at this
point, and the brush is extremely dry. It's not going to get any better, it's
going to get worse."
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
