THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – An evacuation shelter is being set up for Lake County residents forced to leave their homes due to a wildland fire burning northwest of Lakeport.
Late Friday afternoon local officials ordered mandatory evacuations for the Blue Lakes area along Highway 20 to Scotts Valley Road as a result of the Scotts Fire, which was first reported shortly after 1 p.m.
By 7 p.m. the fire had burned an estimated 1,600 acres, with no containment, according to Lake County Deputy Administrative Officer Debra Sommerfield.
Sommerfield told Lake County News that Red Cross and Lake County Social Services were setting up a shelter for evacuees at Upper Lake High School, 675 Clover Valley Road.
Local officials had been briefly staging at the nearby county park while the shelter location was being decided, she said.
Sommerfield said the shelter was expected to be open by 7:15 p.m.
California Highway Patrol officers from Mendocino and Lake County, along with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and California State Parks were assisting with the evacuations, Sommerfield said.
Sommerfield said an estimate of how many people had been evacuated was not immediately available from the sheriff’s office.
CHP reported that a security detail had been placed on Scotts Valley Road in the wake of the evacuations.
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