Firefighting Reinforcements Sent to Out-of-Control Butte Fires
By Phillip Reese, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Jul. 9–OROVILLE — Firefighting reinforcements began to flood into Butte County today to battle a 49,000-acre blaze that officials say is now the state’s top priority among the more than 300 burning across California.
An additional 500 firefighting personnel arrived today, bringing to 2,773 the number on hand to battle the blazes, which already have destroyed 40 to 50 homes and are threatening countless others in Paradise, Magalia and other, smaller communities.
Earlier today, fire officials ordered the evacuation of another 1,000 homes this afternoon over fears that flames could reach them, bringing to 4,800 the total number of homes evacuated since fires erupted out of control near here Tuesday morning.
The latest evacuations were ordered between the town of Deadwood and across Highway 70 to the shores of Lake Oroville.
By Wednesday afternoon, firefighters were evacuating much of Yankee Hill and surrounding areas near Deadwood Road. Those communities sit just south of Concow, where the most homes burned Tuesday.
A few hundred yards up from Deadwood Road Wednesday, Pat Purvis and several other CDF firefighters surrounded a home threatened by flames. After diverting part of the fire around to the east side of the home, where it posed less of a threat, they watched as a large tree branch burned directly above the home.
“Fire snags like that there will fall on your house just as soon as they burn,” said Purvis, a fire engineer from St. Helena. The branch eventually barely missed the house when it fell.
Off Jordan Hill Road, near Purvis, John Felder III was holding out. The trustee of a home he inherited from his father, Felder said he convinced firefighters to let him stay because he had cleared all the trees and brush around his house.
Felder’s 7,200-square-foot home is full of hand-carved furniture and valuable antique books. Felder was confident that the fire wouldn’t get the house.
“Some of these people had stuff right against their house,” Felder said, referring to trees and brush. “I feel bad for them. But that’s all part of living here. You either blend in with your environment or you end up losing.”
As fresh smoke entered the sky a few hundred yards from his home and fire engines used his driveway as a parking lot, Felder said he gets through the stress by making original string art — the process of wrapping colorful string around pegs in a board.
“It’s getting old,” he said of the constant threat. “And my eyes are getting burned out.”
Further down Jordan Hill Road, CDF firefighter Seth Bindell directed a crew of prisoners chainsawing brush and trees. The plan was to build a small fire, robbing the larger fire of fuel should it come through.
“If it jumps below us from here, we’ll have to back off to another road,” Bindell said between giving directions to his crew. Most of his men had been working fires for weeks all over Northern California without much of a break. “They’re getting a little tired,” he said, adding that they were nonetheless holding out well.
Past the fire line, in Concow, the area burned out Tuesday morning, everything was gray. Many of the mobile homes in the area had melted, not even leaving a shell. At one spot, a burned out car overlooked what must have once been a house, though only charred living room furniture, bedding and part of the living room remained recognizable.
Firefighters worried Wednesday that the fire would burn south through Yankee Hill and further threaten Paradise.
“If this thing jumps across the west branch of the Feather River over to Pentz Road and we see a return of southeast winds, it could go right up to Paradise,” said Fire Information Officer Steve Maiero.
Meanwhile, in the surrounding towns of Oroville and Chico, thousands of evacuated residents scrambled to find places to stay.
Several complained that they checked into hotels, only paid for one night because they weren’t sure how long they would be staying, and were told Wednesday morning that they would have to leave because someone else had already booked their room for the following night.
“I told them yesterday I didn’t know how long I’d be here,” said Marilyn Kirin, explaining that she’d just lost her room at the Comfort Inn near downtown Oroville.
Kirin has lived in Camelot, one of the communities near Concow hit hard Tuesday, for 18 years. She has no idea her home is there anymore.
“If they would just tell us,” she said. “I just want to know if my house is still standing. That way we can deal with it.”
More than 10,000 people have fled the fires from the 49,000-acre Butte Lightning fire complex, and officials were worried that shifting weather patterns could spawn thunderstorms and lightning strikes that could make conditions worse.
Weather conditions are expected to favor growth of the fires through the weekend, including record high temperatures and very low humidity, said Felix Garcia, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.
There also remains the potential for thunderstorms along the Sierra Nevada front through Friday, raising the possibility of more lightning strikes and new fires. The Weather Service has blanketed the entire interior of Northern California with a “red flag” fire warning.
“The moisture is very low, the fuels are very dry, we have very, very good conditions for fire weather,” said Garcia. “Were looking at mid-August conditions that are happening right now.”
At least 50 homes have been destroyed in the Concow area of Butte County.
During a news conference in Sacramento this morning, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger confirmed the number of evacuees, including 68 patients from Feather River Hospital in Paradise.
“I think it’s very important that we devote resources to that area,” Schwarzenegger said, referring to the Camp fire threatening Paradise.
Last week, the governor called upon the state National Guard to help battle the hundreds of wildfires burning statewide.
Firefighters continued to contend with strong winds throughout the night and this morning, limiting their ability to contain the blaze, which is part of the larger Butte Lightning Complex burning about 20 miles northeast of Oroville. More than 49,000 acres have been burned by the fire system that has been burning more than two weeks.
By late Tuesday, flames and thick smoke were sweeping up the West Branch of the Feather River toward Magalia, where more evacuations were under way.
In addition to the homes destroyed, 10 outbuildings have burned.
Smoke, already a problem that limited use of aircraft for fighting the fire, seemed even thicker this morning, and ash was observed on car windshields and floating in the thick air as visibility diminished.
In Oroville, where Las Plumas High school is serving as the main evacuation shelter, activity appears limited with fewer vehicles and people on city streets.
The fire also has affected mail delivery. Postal workers have been unable to access many roads in the Concow and Yankee Hill communities, a U.S. Postal Service news release states.
Road closures affected 335 postal deliveries, an entire rural route. Affected addresses includes customers who live along Concow Road, Auroele Way, State Highway 70, Windermere Way, Camelot Lane and Nelson Bar Road.
Residents with identification can pick up their mail at the Oroville Post Office, 1735 Robinson St. For questions, call the post office at (530) 533-4620.
Evacuations began Tuesday morning. When sheriff’s officials came knocking, Earl Buck and his family knew the routine. They evacuated a week ago and had just begun to settle back into their home when they were again urged to leave.
“You get kind of numb to it,” he said of all the evacuations during the last three weeks. “The more you worry about it, the worse you are.”
Buck kept his car packed, and when it was time to go his family sped off into the darkness.
Others weren’t so prepared.
“We had just been told the day before that everything was OK,” said Gail Bartels-Bedner, a Concow resident who was roused from bed shortly after 4 a.m. “I heard a lot of blasts, looked at the front lawn. Flames were 20 feet high across the street.
“We were the last to leave. Nobody woke us. Our clothes were hot. And ashes were flying.”
Twelve hours later, the fire was threatening Paradise — a community that has barely had time to recover from a blaze a few weeks ago that destroyed 74 homes. Precautionary evacuations were under way for most of the east side of Paradise.
The Feather River Hospital was on high alert.
Tuesday afternoon, 95 children were evacuated from Camp Okizu, a recreational center for kids with cancer. “They’ve been remarkably good,” Michael Amylon, the camp’s medical director, said of the children. “We always talk about fire being a danger.”
Winds gusting to 25 mph whipped embers beyond containment lines, allowing the blaze to devour more parched wildlands and bringing renewed vigor to the battle against the fires.
Peggy Meyer, who lives in Magalia, woke up to darkened skies. “We have so much ash it looks a little like dirty rain,” she wrote in an e-mail.
The stubborn fire — one of 323 still burning in California — refused to be quelled. Officials listed the Butte County complex as 40 percent contained, but it meant little to frantic residents trying to flee smoke and fire.
Fire officials had expected flames would go south along the Feather River canyon. Instead, the fire shifted up the canyon, sweeping through the Concow and Camelot areas.
In recent days, the typical evening winds had been less active, allowing fire crews to make progress. That changed Monday evening.
“Just a small wind shift makes a drastic change in the direction of the fire and where we’re going,” said state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Daniel Berlant.
“Until the fire is 100 percent contained, we don’t want to be complacent. It’s our job to remind residents there still is danger,” he said.
The shift in the fire’s course left officials with little time to warn residents — fueling frustration among people who yearned for more time to save belongings.
More than 2,440 personnel were assigned to the blaze, many of them on 24-hour shifts.
With so many fires still burning across the state, local officials lamented the lack of resources to quell the blaze.
“We just don’t have the resources,” said Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly, whose district includes Concow and other fire-ravaged areas.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency made funds available to help California with the cost of fighting the Butte fire and several others.
In Oroville, space quickly filled at Las Plumas High School as more than 2,000 evacuees looked for shelter.
The American Red Cross has opened other facilities to accommodate the evacuees in addition to the Las Pluam High School facility at 2238 Las Plumas Ave. in Oroville:
–Church of the Nazarene, 2238 Monte Vista Ave., Oroville.
–Neighborhood Church, 2801 Notre Dame Blvd., Chico.
–Chico State University’s Yolo Hall, off Warner St., Chico, behind the Acker and Shurmer gyms.
The shelters provide food, counseling, health assessments and a place to rest for evacuees. The shelters will remain open until residents are allowed back in their homes, states an American Red Cross news release.
Randy Totten and his girlfriend didn’t have much time to pack. They could grab only one dog among the 35 Australian cattle dogs, anondales, Chihuahuas and corgis at their kennel.
Totten and his girlfriend were asleep when authorities banged on their door. “They said the fire was on top of us. They said, ‘Get in your car and leave.’ “
By then, Totten’s car was partly on fire, he said. He and his girlfriend threw dirt to extinguish the flames, then drove away.
“They told us we were safe,” said Totten, a Concow resident. He said a Red Cross worker had told him his home had been destroyed. “We lost everything.”
Emotions at the shelter ran high. As Totten talked about what happened to him, an argument erupted between two brothers, one of whom had apparently just lost a home.
“People are turning on themselves here,” Totten said. “They are desperate. For days, this fire has been coming toward our house and nobody told us.”br
The Bee’s Niesha Lofing contributed to this report.
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