Mendocino Complex, fanned by winds, hits Scotts Valley; containment on incident grows
- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Mendocino Complex grew again by thousands of acres after wind shifts on Tuesday drove the River fire into homes and properties in the Scotts Valley area outside of Lakeport, where structures were reported to have been lost.
In its five-day run, the Mendocino Complex has burned 90,912 acres and is 24-percent contained. The acreage grew by more than 10,000 acres since Cal Fire’s Tuesday night report.
The Ranch fire continues to outpace the river fire, burning largely uncontrolled in publicly held lands. It was up to 59,014 acres and 15-percent contained.
The River fire is 31,898 acres and 38-percent contained, and continues to threaten Lakeport, resulting in a citywide mandatory evacuation.
Overall, Cal Fire officials have considered the complex’s structure loss to be minimal, and believe they can fully control the complex by Aug. 7.
Tuesday brought some victories such as the mandatory evacuation order being lifted for the Kelseyville, Finley and Big Valley Rancheria areas, which were reduced to advisory evacuations. Potter Valley in Mendocino County also was allowed to repopulate.
But more dramatic were the setbacks, which came in the form of winds that kicked up ferociously, particularly in the afternoon, pitting firefighters against dramatic walls of flame in the Scotts Valley and Hendricks roads areas that were estimated to be more than 100 feet high in some areas.
Fire photographer Stuart Palley, who was on the scene Tuesday, called the situation on social media, “Some of the most intense wildland urban interface firefighting I’ve seen in 100 fires. Fire behavior I saw today is terrifying, there is little to stop it other than fire front following.”
At the same time, new fires – including the Eel in Covelo and the Whaleback fire in Lassen County – required air resources be shifted off the Mendocino Complex on Tuesday, while many resources still remain devoted the state’s biggest incident, the nearly 115,538-acre Carr fire, which reached 35-percent containment on Wednesday morning. It has destroyed 1,465 structures – 1,018 of them homes – and damaged 248 others.
Based on the reports from firefighters at the scene, Tuesday is likely to turn out to be the most destructive day so far for structures on the Mendocino Complex. By nightfall, the fire had burned along orchards and into properties, where a number of structures were reported to have been destroyed.
Cal Fire’s Wednesday morning report put the total number of destroyed structures so far at 11, 10 residences and one outbuilding, while two homes and one other structure have been damaged.
It was not clear if those numbers included the Tuesday night damage. Into early Wednesday morning, strike teams working around the areas of Dessie Drive, Hendricks Road and Scotts Valley Road were tallying the number of structures lost during the fire fight on Tuesday.
Cal Fire has assigned a growing force of 2,677 firefighters, 326 engines, 47 water tenders, 16 helicopters, 43 hand crews and 47 dozers.
Still, with the situation remaining both dangerous and uncertain, the entire city of Lakeport and its surrounds remained under mandatory evacuation as Wednesday arrived.
Late Tuesday night, the city of Lakeport’s administrative and police staff continued to track the situation from the emergency operations center, which they are staffing around the clock.
Police Chief Brad Rasmussen said they had been monitoring the flareups on Scotts Valley Road, located outside of the city limits. “That’s been our concern this evening.”
The fire had made its way to the edge of the city’s water infrastructure wells at the Green Ranch in the Scotts Valley area, he said. “Those are OK now,” he said, with no reported damage.
Fire mapping early Wednesday showed that both fires appear are most active on their northern edges, with the Ranch fire appearing to move more to the east and northeast and deeper into the Mendocino National Forest, where so far resources haven’t been available to try to stop it. However, each fire also contains numerous interior areas where new active fire activity is taking place.
Pacific Gas and Electric said about 1,300 customers in both Lake and Mendocino counties are still out of power because of the complex.
Cal Fire and the US Forest Service will host a meeting to update the community on the complex at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 1, at Kelseyville High School, 5480 Main St.
Shifting winds lead to dangerous conditions
Firefighters over the radio at around 2 a.m. Tuesday had first begun noting wind shifts on the River fire, when a light wind started to push it.
At that point, they reported a shift in the breeze toward Dessie Drive, more from the north than the south.
There had also been continued concerns throughout the day for the Highland Springs area. On Tuesday morning Supervisor Rob Brown said the River fire was to the north and west of Highland Springs Reservoir toward the Mendocino County line.
Firefighters were sent in for structure protection in the Highland Springs area where some residents also were preparing to defend their homes.
By the afternoon, the situation near Scotts Valley was reported to be changing swiftly and becoming increasingly dangerous.
The fire began to make runs at dozer line at around 4:30 p.m., and with concerns that containment lines wouldn’t hold, crews were ordered to go into structure defense mode. Minutes later, it was reported that a retardant drop on the fire had “zero effect.”
Dozers reportedly had success putting line in around the Red Mountain area, while planes worked around Scotts Valley.
At around 5:30 p.m., firefighters were moving to the Hendricks Road area, where homes and structures were reported to be threatened, according to radio traffic.
Just before 7 p.m. firefighters reported that the main fire front was running into the Scotts Valley area, where a barn was on fire.
At that time, only two air tankers were left on the fire as the rest had been diverted to the rapidly growly Eel fire in Covelo.
With the fire running over the road and into power poles, the situation was reported to be compromised, as engines were requested to respond to Scotts Valley and Hendricks roads.
Minutes after 7 p.m., the fire was reported to be running down toward Hendricks Road and the headwaters of Hendricks Creek, with the fire going down the creek north of Dessie Drive.
At about 8:30 p.m., all of the aircraft had left the scene for the night, leaving ground crews to continue to contend with the fire making its run through grass.
By 11 p.m., crews were directed to do a primary search and count of structures that had burned in the afternoon and evening. There were concerns about dropping power lines, but incident command confirmed that PG&E had deenergized the lines.
Late Tuesday, the radio reports indicated that the weather was not cooperating with a firing operation, so water tenders were asked to water down roads up to a campground in the Cow Mountain area.
The situation seemed to have settled down after midnight early Wednesday morning, at which point more structure protection protection was set up for two houses located on Dessie Drive.
Progress made on the Ranch fire; officials remain vigilant
On the Ranch fire, officials reported that in the last few days firefighters have made progress protecting homes while a large portion of the fire has made its way into the Mendocino National Forest, which remains under evacuation on the Lake County side.
Operations Manager John Messina of Cal Fire Incident Management Team 2 said at the Board of Supervisors’ special meeting on Tuesday morning that, due to lack of resources, firefighters haven’t been able to do much to stop the Ranch fire as it moves up into the Mendocino National Forest above Upper Lake.
The fire crossed Elk Mountain Road in the forest area and has continued burning out of control, but Messina said they have a plan they’ll pursue once they have more resources available.
On Tuesday evening, when the Ranch fire’s size was just over 51,000 acres, Mendocino National Forest spokeswoman Punky Moore said that 30,000 acres had burned on the forest.
So far, the fire has not advanced down the Northshore farther than Upper Lake, although Nice remains under evacuation and an advisory evacuation was issued for Lucerne.
Back in Lakeport, on the River fire side of the complex, Rasmussen said police and Public Works staffers are manning barricades to keep the city safe. Police are continuing to make arrests of individuals caught in the evacuation area, including subjects found with burglary tools and a man who admitted he was in town to steal a boat.
Rasmussen said his officers arrested three more subjects on Tuesday. He estimated there had been 19 arrests in all of the county’s evacuation areas.
“The cops have been doing a really good job of stopping everything that moves,” he said.
Rasmussen and all of his police staff are evacuated from their homes and working long shifts; by that time, he’d already been on the job for close to 15 hours, after a six-hour break that followed a 36-hour shift.
The Lakeport emergency operations center, where the public is welcome to call around the clock at 707-263-5683, has been getting “a fair amount of calls” from the public, with many people asking about when they can go home, according to Rasmussen.
He said they would be there all night and beyond. “We’re going to be 24/7 until our city is repopulated.”
With the entire city and its surrounding areas evacuated, Rasmussen said, “We’re just worried. We’ve never seen anything like this.”
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