Tag Archives: Wildfire

California governor declares wildfire state of emergency

California governor declares wildfire state of emergency

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – California Governor Jerry Brown on Friday issued an emergency declaration for a wildfire burning in the northern part of the state, the same day the man accused of starting the blaze was charged with arson.

The so-called Ponderosa Fire has burned 3,715 acres (1,503 hectares) and destroyed 30 homes in Butte County, prompting authorities to issue evacuation orders to residents of some 500 homes in the area, officials said. It was 40 percent contained on Friday, up from 30 percent the day before.

The blaze is burning east of the town of Oroville, about 85 miles (137 km) north of the state capital of Sacramento.

The declaration will free up additional resources to battle the blaze, which erupted on Tuesday from a campfire that was started outside a designated area.

The man charged with starting the fire, John Ballenger, made his first court appearance in Butte County Superior Court on Friday, District Attorney Michael Ramsey said in a telephone interview.

Ballenger is charged with two counts of arson and was ordered held on a $1 million bond, Ramsey said. Ballenger could face up to seven years and eight months in prison if convicted.

Ballenger was appointed a public defender and is due back in court to enter a plea on Wednesday. The public defender’s office could not be reached for comment.

Ballenger was camping on property his family owns, Ramsey said.

“He had a campfire burning 24-7,” the district attorney said.

Meanwhile, another wildfire broke out on Friday, more than 400 miles (644 km) south of the Ponderosa blaze, in a north Los Angeles neighborhood.

The 2,000-acre (810 hectare) blaze triggered the closure of a section of the 210 Freeway as it tore through brush, and authorities also told residents of 200 homes in the area to evacuate because of approaching flames, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart.

In Montana, Governor Steve Bullock on Friday declared a state of disaster due to wildfires as dozens raged across tens of thousands of acres during one of the worst fire seasons in state history.

Bone-dry conditions, high winds and triple-digit temperatures pose “an imminent threat” to residents, Bullock said in the disaster declaration, which would allow the state to mobilize additional Montana National Guard troops and tap other state resources to combat the blazes.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Additional reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles,; Editing by Richard Chang and Nick Macfie)

Fast-moving wildfire destroys homes in Northern California

Fast-moving wildfire destroys homes in Northern California

(Reuters) – A fast-moving wildfire destroyed several homes and forced the evacuation of residents in Northern California on Tuesday, local media and fire officials said.

The fire started at 1.15 p.m. and burned 1,000 acres (405 hectares) in Butte County, about 85 miles (135 km) north of Sacramento, according to information on the Cal Fire website. At least nine houses were destroyed, local media reported.

Photos on social media showed the fire turning houses into ash as smoke billowed into the sky and flames ripped through trees and vegetation.

“My grandparents’ house is gone. Everything on their road burned and it feels like losing my grandma all over again,” said a Twitter user.

A mandatory evacuation order was placed on residents who live in the remote area. It is unclear how many residents were evacuated. Two shelters were opened for displaced residents, local media reported.

Cal Fire officials were not immediately available for comment.

Northern California is facing a heatwave over the next few days with temperatures expected to top 105 degrees Fahrenheit, the National Weather Service said.

Since the beginning of the year, wildfires in the U.S. West have burned more than 6.8 million acres, about 50 percent more than during the same time period in 2016.

More than 45,000 fires have burned so far this year across the region, 15 percent more than in 2016, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Montana wildfire triggers hundreds of evacuations

By Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – A lightning-sparked wildfire burning for more than a month in western Montana has flared anew, prompting the evacuation of nearly 750 homes on Thursday as firefighters braced for more hot and windy weather forecast for the weekend, authorities said.

The so-called Lolo Peak fire, burning about 12 miles south of Missoula, has scorched more than 15,000 acres of timber since it erupted in mid-July, as tinder-dry conditions challenged efforts to contain the blaze.

“When the winds kicked up last Sunday, it made a run of one and a half miles in an hour and has been growing since,” U.S. Forest Service spokesman James Stone said.

Erratic winds pushed flames close to housing subdivisions in two counties on Thursday, prompting mandatory evacuations of residents from 743 homes, said Jordan Koppen, a spokesman for the fire management command.

Fire retardant drops from helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft have been deployed to douse the flames in an effort to assist some 500 firefighters on the scene.

No property losses have been reported, but a 29-year-old member of an elite “hotshots” firefighting crew from California was killed this month when a falling tree struck him.

Koppen said weather forecasters have issued red-flag warnings for the area on Friday, and he expects the burned acreage to increase when the fire is mapped again Thursday night.

The northern Rocky Mountain region has been in the grips of a prolonged drought, and this year wildfires have blackened 393,000 acres in Montana and parts of neighboring Idaho, Stone said.

In Oregon on Thursday, Governor Kate Brown authorized the state’s fire marshal to mobilize additional resources to aid local firefighting efforts near the Cascade town of Sisters, where a wildfire threatened more than 400 structures. An estimated 1,200 residents of the area were advised to stand by for possible evacuation notices.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Steve Gorman and Leslie Adler)

U.S. wildfire preparedness raised to highest level

FILE PHOTO: Rose fire burns near Lake Elsinore in Western Riverside County, California, U.S. in this undated photo obtained by Reuters July 31, 2017. Riverside County Fire Department via Facebook/Handout via REUTERS.

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. fire managers on Thursday raised the nation’s wildfire readiness status to its highest level for the first time in two years, as California and several other Western states faced heightened danger from lightning storms.

The National Fire Preparedness Level was elevated one notch from “PL-4” to “PL-5,” the top ranking on a five-point scale, recognizing that firefighting resources have been strained to their limits by the large number and scope of blazes in the west.

It also reflects the probability that severe weather conditions conducive to wildfires will continue for at least a few days.

The move allows for emergency assistance to be called upon from the U.S. military and even other countries, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

“Wildfire activity has escalated in recent days after thunderstorms, many with little or no moisture, moved across parts of California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana, sparking hundreds of new fires,” the fire center said.

The decision to raise the preparedness level was made by a multi-agency group of federal and state fire managers. The readiness status had been posted at PL-4 during most of July and into August before Thursday’s move, said fire center spokesman Randy Eardley.

The higher alert level means fire managers may be forced to let some large blazes they otherwise would have fought in remote locations burn unchallenged in order to make resources available to suppress fires posing a greater threat to life and property, Eardley said.

Nearly 41,000 individual wildfires of all sizes have scorched more than 6 million acres in the United States so far this year, well above the 4.2 million acres burned on average over the last 10 years, according to the fire center.

The last time an alert level of PL-5 was invoked was in August 2015. That same year, 200 U.S. Army soldiers were assigned to battle fires in Washington state for 30 days, while personnel and aircraft were brought in from Canada, Australia and New Zealand to support fire suppression efforts in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies.

Thursday’s elevation to PL-5 marked the fifth time the highest point on the readiness scale has been reached since 2007.

The National Interagency Fire Center reported 38 large, active wildfires burning across seven Western states on Thursday, primarily in California, Montana and Oregon.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Joseph Radford)

Elite firefighter killed while battling western Montana blaze

(Reuters) – An elite California firefighter was killed by a falling tree while battling a blaze in western Montana, the second firefighting death in the area over the last two weeks, officials said.

Brent Witham, 29, of Mentone, California, was killed on Wednesday while fighting the so-called Lolo Peak Fire about 30 miles (50 km)south of Missoula in the Lolo National Park. It was sparked by lightning on July 15, the Missoula County sheriff and coroner said.

Witham was given CPR at the scene, but could not be revived, the Missoulian newspaper reported.

“Please keep wildland firefighters on the Lolo Peak fire and firefighters across the nation in your thoughts and prayers,” Leigh Golden, the fire department’s public information officer, said in an emailed statement to the newspaper.

Witham was a member of the Vista Grande Hotshots, an elite firefighting crew, one of 113 20-member specially trained squads in the United States that fight wildfires at close range with hand tools.

Witham’s death comes two weeks after Trenton Johnson, 19, was struck by a tree and killed while fighting the Florence Fire, a blaze in the Lolo National Forest, on July 19.

An elite squad of 19 Arizona firemen were killed in Arizona in 2014, the worst U.S. wildland firefighting tragedy in 80 years.

Witham was one of about 350 firefighters battling the Lolo Peak Fire that has burned 6,500 acres (2,600 hectares) of high elevation timber 10 miles (26 km) southwest of Lolo, forcing some evacuations.

 

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; editing by Clelia Oziel)

 

Evacuation order lifted as wildfire threatens California homes

Evacuation order lifted as wildfire threatens California homes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An evacuation order was lifted on Monday at the edge of a national forest in Southern California, after a wildfire threatening dozens of homes in the path of the flames.

The so-called Rose Fire, which broke near foothill communities east of the Cleveland National Forest in mid-afternoon, had charred some 150 acres (61 hectares) within several hours, according to the Riverside Fire Department.

The blaze was zero-percent contained at 8 p.m., as local television showed images of the flames bearing down on several homes. There were no immediate reports of injuries or structures destroyed.

Fire officials lifted all evacuation orders at about 8 p.m. local time.

More than 200 firefighters were deployed to battle the flames, assisted by three helicopters and six fixed-wing air tankers.

Investigators determined that the fire was caused accidentally by equipment, the Riverside Fire Department said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Crews gain ground against Montana wildfire, largest in U.S.

Wildland Firefighters battle the Bridge Coulee Fire, part of the Lodgepole Complex, east of the Musselshell River, north of Mosby, Montana, U.S. July 21, 2017. Bureau of Land Management/Jonathan Moor/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – Fire crews gained ground on Tuesday against a nearly week-old wildfire that has torched more than two dozens buildings and charred hundreds of square miles of Montana prairie and is currently the biggest fire burning in the United States.

By Tuesday evening, a firefighting force consisting of 650 personnel had managed to carve buffer lines around 36 percent of the blaze’s perimeter, up from a containment level of 20 percent reported earlier in the day, fire officials said.

Enough progress was made that authorities on Tuesday lifted evacuation orders that had been in place for about 50 property owners since late last week, fire command spokesman Tim Engrav said.

“We’ve turned a corner,” he told Reuters, saying that hand crews and a small fleet of water-dropping helicopters had taken advantage of diminished winds, cooler temperatures and higher humidity levels during the past two days.

The aim was to consolidate gains before the weekend, when drier, gusty, hotter conditions were forecast to return, Engrav said.

The so-called Lodgepole Complex fire has so far laid waste to an estimated 270,000 acres (109,000 hectares) of sagebrush, grasslands and timber near the Missouri River in eastern Montana, Engrav said.

At least 16 homes and 10 other structures have been destroyed, but no serious injuries have been reported, fire officials said.

The Lodgepole ranked as the biggest of 45 large active fires burning across 10 Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Montana accounts for 16 of those fires, more than any other state, the agency said.

Residents of Montana’s sparsely populated Garfield County, where the Lodgepole fire was burning, collected and transported relief supplies to people whose property has been damaged or destroyed.

Garfield County spokeswoman Anne Miller said in a telephone interview that donations of groceries, hay and money were pouring in to the tiny town of Jordan, Montana, about 220 miles northeast of Billings. Volunteers were mending fences, preparing food and gathering livestock.

“A house is considered a major loss, but the livelihood of most people here is the livestock, the pasture and grazing land,” Miller said. “The majority of these people would have rather lost their homes than their grassland.”

The Lodgepole Complex began last Wednesday as a cluster of four, smaller fires that erupted following a lightning storm and then converged two days later, though the official cause remains under investigation.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by W Simon, David Gregorio and Christian Schmollinger)

Montana blaze rages as California crews gain ground on wildfire

FILE PHOTO: A house stands amid blackened range where the Lodgepole Complex fire jumped the Montana 200 highway, near Mosby, Montana, U.S. July 23, 2017. Bureau of Land Management/Handout via REUTERS.

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – The biggest U.S. wildfire torched buildings and parched grassland forcing evacuations in eastern Montana while California firefighters gained ground on a massive blaze near Yosemite National Park on Monday, authorities said.

The two-blaze Lodgepole Complex in Montana, the biggest wildfire in the United States currently, was only 5 percent contained on Monday after racing through 226,000 acres (91,500 hectares) of timber, brush and range land near the Missouri River, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center.

The 215 firefighters have had to rely on bulldozers and harrows to plow fire breaks since water alone cannot put out the flames driven by high temperatures, lack of rain and gusty winds, said Tim Engrav, a spokesman for the firefighter command center.

“Folks who’ve been fighting fires in this part of Montana since the early ’80s said they’ve never seen it so difficult,” he said by telephone from Sand Springs, Montana. Engrav said about 50 people have been evacuated from their homes.

The Lodgepole fire was started by lightning on Wednesday and has destroyed 22 structures, the coordination center said. Much of the state is under a National Weather Service “red flag” warning because of dry weather and gusty winds.

In California, the Detwiler Fire that has threatened historic gold rush towns in the Sierra Nevada mountains was 50 percent contained, up from 45 percent on Sunday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said.

The fire has burned 76,500 acres (31,000 hectares), but higher overnight humidity has helped the 5,100 firefighters despite sunny, dry daytime weather, said Heather Williams, a Cal Fire spokeswoman.

The Detwiler fire has destroyed more than 130 structures, including 63 homes, and most of the 5,000 people ordered from their homes are now allowed to return, according to the Cal Fire website.

The Lodgepole and Detwiler fires are among the 38 large U.S. wildfires, the coordination center said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; editing by Diane Craft)

Evacuation orders lifted but California wildfire rages on

Charred grasslands remain after the Long Valley fire came through the Fort Sage Off-Highway Vehicle Area.

(Reuters) – Residents of a historic gold-mining town in central California began returning home on Friday as evacuation orders prompted by a massive wildfire were lifted, but some 1,500 structures remained threatened by the flames.

Around 2,000 residents of the town of Mariposa, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, fled their homes on Tuesday as the so-called Detwiler Fire bore down on them.

The blaze, which has blackened more than 75,000 acres, destroyed 125 structures, 61 of them homes, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Detwiler, one of dozens of major wildfires burning across the U.S. West, was 25 percent contained as of Friday evening, Cal Fire said on its tracking website.

“Even though the fire has grown in one area, there’s containment in other areas and those are safe for the owners to go back,” Cal Fire spokesman John Clingingsmith said.

A total of 5,000 residents in the small communities on the edge of the Yosemite National Park have been evacuated since the fast-moving fire broke out on Sunday, including the town of Coulterville.

“Except for (Wednesday), this fire doubled in size every day,” Tim Chavez, a state fire official said during the community meeting. “That is really unusual for it to progress like that.”

More than 3,800 firefighters, working in temperatures of 90 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit (32 to 36 Celsius), were battling the fire, Cal Fire said.

Chavez blamed the fire’s growth on spot fires, drought and grassy vegetation. The area’s rough topography made fighting the blaze harder, he said.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Mariposa County on Tuesday.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

A total of 44 large fires across 11 western states were burning on Thursday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center’s website.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Gina Cherelus in New York and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Larry King and Bernadette Baum)

Evacuation order may be lifted Friday as California wildfire slows

A firefighting truck is seen parked along a firebreak beneath a burning ridge during the Detwiler fire in Mariposa, California. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

(Reuters) – Some residents of a historic gold-mining town in central California may be able to go home on Friday as a wildfire nearby slowed its progress after destroying dozens of houses over the past several days, the local sheriff said.

About 2,000 residents of the town of Mariposa in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains fled their homes on Tuesday as the so-called Detwiler Fire approached. It eventually destroyed 99 structures, including 50 houses, in the area, according to local and state officials.

“We are in very detailed conversations about repopulation,” Mariposa County Sheriff Doug Binnewies said during a community meeting on the fire on Thursday. He said authorities hoped people from Mariposa could go home on Friday.

At total of 5,000 residents in the small communities on the edge of Yosemite National Park have been evacuated since the fire began on Sunday. The community of Coulterville was evacuated on Wednesday.

The fire, which has burned 70,596 acres (28,570 hectares), is just 10 percent contained, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said on its website.

After expanded by more than 22,000 acres overnight, the fire’s progress slowed on Thursday, taking only 500 acres during the day, Cal Fire said.

“Except for (Wednesday), this fire doubled in size every day,” Tim Chavez, a state fire official said during the community meeting. “That is really unusual for it to progress like that.”

More than 3,700 firefighters, working in temperatures of 90 to 96 degrees Fahrenheit (32 to 36 Celsius), were battling the fire, Cal Fire said.

Chavez blamed the fire’s growth on spot fires, drought and grassy vegetation. The area’s rough topography made fighting the fire harder, he said.

“I am not try to make excuses … it’s been a tough fire for us,” he said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for Mariposa County on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in Montana, officials said that a 19-year-old fireman was killed on Wednesday when part of a tree fell on him while he was fighting the so-called Florence Fire north of Seeley Lake.

A total of 44 large fires across 11 western states were burning on Thursday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center’s website.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, editing by Larry King)