Former Firehouse Among Structures Consumed by CA Wildfire

Firefighters are battling a 3,000-acre wildfire in Northern California that destroyed at least 175 buildings and forced about 1,400 residents to flee their lake community, authorities said Monday.

The fast-moving Clayton fire broke out late Saturday afternoon off Highway 29 and Clayton Creek Road, forcing the entire community of Lower Lake — located in Lake County, more than 100 miles north of San Francisco — to evacuate, officials said.

Bulldozer operators spent much of Sunday night and Monday morning carving extra wide fire lines along the town of Clearlake’s eastern border in an effort to contain the blaze.

Extreme heat combined with the dry brush enabled the fire to grow overnight, burning about 1,400 acres and destroying four homes, according to Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The fire doubled in size Sunday as it reached Main Street in Lower Lake and burned the post office, a winery, a Habitat for Humanity office and several other businesses, according to the Associated Press. Sixteen patients at a hospital in neighboring Clearlake had to be transferred to another facility 25 miles away.

“You can’t imagine what took place,” Cal Fire spokesman Scott McLean said Sunday evening. “There was extreme fire behavior and winds that pushed it across the road into structure after structure after structure. We had airplanes dropping retardant, helicopters dropping thousands of gallons of water — trying to get ahead of this.”

Fire officials said Lake County was particularly hard hit by the state’s lingering drought.

“So when a fire ignites they’re able to move rapidly,” Berlant said.

The fire is only 5% contained, said Undersheriff Chris Macedo of the Lake County Sheriff's Department.

Daytime high temperatures in Lake County, near the fire, are expected to hover around 100 degrees through mid-week, said Eric Kurth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. By Thursday, the area should cool slightly, with high temperatures Friday and through the weekend projected in the lower 90s, he said.

The evenings are expected to be cooler, with temperatures forecast in the upper 60s, but they’re “definitely warm evenings,” Kurth said.

“It’s nothing that’s extraordinary, not record-setting, but it is hot — it’s seasonably hot,” Kurth said.

The Clayton fire is burning in an area between last year’s devastating Valley, Rock and Jerusalem fires, which broke out around the Lower Lake area.

Nearly 200 people forced out of their homes in Lower Lake spent Sunday night in an American Red Cross shelter set up at Twin Pine Casino & Hotel in nearby Middletown — a tiny town that was itself ravaged by the Valley fire, one of the worst fires in California history, just 11 months ago.

The casino was certainly ready: The Red Cross had left behind two trailers of cots and care kits when it pulled out of town last year, and the casino had opened itself up as a fire shelter even before being declared one, said Kyle Lewis, a spokesman for the casino.

“Fire survivors” as they’re called locally — people who lost their homes to last year’s fires — had lived for months in the casino and hotel. The last of them had left just a few weeks ago, Lewis said. And now the hotel is full again with members of the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California (which owns and operates the facility) and casino employees forced out of their homes by the Clayton fire.

The back-to-back wildfires have changed how Lewis, 37, a relative newcomer, views life in the rolling hills of Lake County. He was forced from his home last year for a week and considers himself lucky to have just had superficial property damage. He knows many others who lost their homes.

“I think it has made us a very strong community that I am very proud of,” he said.

At Hardester’s Market & Hardware, which has anchored Middletown since 1943, clerks said they had already met their first double-fire survivors: a family burned out of Middletown by the Valley fire just lost their new home in Lower Lake just up the road. A cashier at the flower stand wondered aloud, as many in the community are doing, if the Clayton fire was arson.

“We’ve always had fires, but never this big,” she said. “And in the anniversary of the last three.”

Store owner Ross Hardester said Lake County residents are devastated to be going through such loss again.

“There was such a good buzz; we were starting to recover,” he said. The town was swept by flames last year and had gotten through the first bleak month, and then the painful Christmas holidays, and was starting to see permits being issued and new homes going up on charred lots.

“Now this,” Hardester said. “So many people are on edge again.”

Tessie Espinosa fled her Lower Lake house the moment she saw smoke.

“We’ve learned that you can’t trust for warnings to get out,” she said.

Espinosa is an administrator for the senior center in Middletown, where elderly clients interrupted her every few minutes Monday for updates on what was destroyed the night before and what was still standing in Lower Lake. Her tone was light and reassuring — but on the “I am not sure” list is her own house.

She pulled out her phone and showed a state map of the four major fires that have affected the region. She pointed at a small, unburned area in the center.

“That’s where we live,” she said.

The Clayton fire is one of several wildfires burning throughout California.

The Chimney fire that broke out near Lake Nacimiento in San Luis Obispo County has burned 4,300 acres, destroyed 12 structures and is threatening 200 more, Cal Fire said Monday.

Evacuations have taken place in a handful of communities, including Running Deer Ranch and Cal Shasta.

The fire was first reported about 4 p.m. Saturday near the intersection of Running Deer and Chimney Rock roads, according to Cal Fire.

Active through the night, the fire was slowed about 1 a.m. by air pressure at a higher elevation pushing down and trapping cooler temperatures, Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said. This blanket, known as an inversion layer, prevents smoke from rising and decelerates any flames.

Once that inversion layer began to lift Sunday, the Chimney fire increased in activity, prompting officials to bring in additional firefighters and resources from across the region.

Berlant said several hundred fire personnel were on the scene, as well as large air tankers.

“It’s been burning this afternoon at an explosive rate,” he said.

The fire was 10% contained.

The Soberanes fire, a deadly blaze burning north of Big Sur, has wiped out nearly 60 homes, burned more than 72,000 acres and claimed the life of a bulldozer operator.

Cal Fire officials said the fire, which was started by an illegal campfire, was 60% contained.

The wildfires underscore the elevated risks Southern California faces as it endures yet another summer heat wave, which forecasters say will continue until Wednesday.

The combination of very hot, dry and windy conditions increases the potential for wildfires in the mountains of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, as well as in the foothills in Antelope Valley, said Rich Thompson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Several Southland communities saw triple-digit temperatures over the weekend, including Van Nuys, Chatsworth and Palm Springs. On Sunday, temperatures hit 104 in Woodland Hills and 111 in Thermal.

Times staff writer St. John reported from Middletown, and Branson-Potts, Vives and Knoll from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Erica Evans and Cindy Carcamo contributed this report.

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UPDATES:

12:44 p.m.: This article was updated with a weather forecast and interviews from Lake County residents.

11:23 a.m.: This article was updated with interviews from a Red Cross evacuation center.

9:10 a.m.: This article was updated with new details from fire officials.

This article was originally published at 5 a.m.

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