QUICK LOOK AT THE RECORD SETTING 2007 CALIFORNIA WILD LAND FIRE SEASON
CAL FIRE NEWS - Apparently the Southern California
wildland fire season truly never ends, With some seasonal wildland firefighter positions extended right into 2008, Winter aircraft maintenance deferred because the planes are still flying, Weather watches and Red Flag warnings daily, Extra crews and prepositioned strike teams away from home and working Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years shifts.
The
Zaca2 fire is still not officially controlled with small inaccessible interior burns called "Smokes" still burning inside the perimeter fire officials are waiting for the winter rains to finish the job.
The fuels are still very dry, with the very few rains and dry winds always quickly re-drying the fuel.
From San Diego to Los Padres National Forest the fire season tried to slow down but never really stopped.
First came the spectacular
Catalina Island Fire named the
Island Fire May 10, which started just after the lunch hour and burned 4,750 acres in about five days, Destroying one home and six other buildings.
The next real news maker California wild land fire in 2007 was the
Angora Fire 3,100 acres
June 24th and ignited in the South Lake Tahoe area burning right up to the edge of downtown and the local high school track, Destroying 254 residences, 75 commercial structures and out buildings destroyed, 35 homes were damaged.
Then July came in with ferocity with the monster called the
ZACA fire started by a couple hardworking ranch hands with a angle grinder CAL FIRE chased it off the SRA lands while protecting the structures to the southwest in the Wildland Urban interface and then the winds turned north and it went northeast right into the
Los Padres National Forest.
The very rugged and mostly inaccessible Los Padres wilderness areas are Federal responsibility thereby allowing CAL FIRE to hand the fire off to United States Forest Service(USFS) by default.
Almost at the same time a series of large lighting storms passed over Northern California for a few days and ignited a whole series of fires in the far North state some of the fires in the remote wilderness areas were managed as WUF fires(Wildland Fire Use) and allowed to burn with supervision, other fires developed and merged together and were managed as a single fire called a fire complex.
One of the fire complexes was named the
Inyo Complex Fire 35,176 acres
started on July 6th it burned deep in the
Inyo National Forest and was very stubborn, At the same time the
Antelope Complex July 5th was burning in the
Plumas National Forest and another 22,902 acres of heavy timber was consumed before control.
July 10 brought California the
Elk Complex Fire in the
Kalamath National Forest two months later when it was 90% contained at 17,684 acres in the Klamath river drainage it was allowed to burn it self out.
The first significant Malibu
Canyon fire in 2007 started on July 7th and burned 815 acres before control, a few days later the
China Back Complex ignited due to severe lightning from thunderstorms on July 9
th and burned 2,906 acres 12 miles west of Yreka, Calif in Klamath river drainage. The same storm front also started the
Fletcher fire and burned
8,121 acres 2,207 acres on the Modoc National Forest land and 4,399 acres of private land and of those acres, 1,515 acres were in Oregon.
Also because of the lightning the
Colby fire 260 acres snaked around the
Lassen National Forest and the Seven Eleven Complex Fire
July 11th burned in the
Six Rivers National Forest adding another 190 acres of heavy timber burned.
The
Tar Fire August 10th in Fresno County was declared controlled on August 17 at 5,644 acres.
The
ZACA Fire was still burning further south and resisting containment in the inaccessible terrain was nearing 100,000 acres with no containment date in sight and now renamed the
ZACA 2 when it threatened State responsibility lands again and a unified command was created with the corresponding huge amount of resources thrown into the battle.
At one point 110 private contract water tenders were ferrying water into the rugged, dry wilderness and during the height of the battle a courageous stand by the crews was made on state highway 33 during a wind event when firefighters held the fire to the west of the highway in area called the switchbacks chasing slop overs and keeping the fire from consuming another 100,000 acres of the Dick Smith wilderness.
August had the Nor Cal fire crews on the west face of the Sierras busy with the
Snow,
80, and
Italian fires all held to about a 100 acres in Timber and Chaparal.
An exception was the
Lazy Fire up in the
Shasta-Trinity National Forest which went to 599 acres and the
Wallow Fire at 1440 acres, Started on August 27th the lightning caused
Grouse Fire was holding a week later at 1,022 acres.
Near the end of August in the
Klamath National Forest they began fighting the
Cherry Fire held to 95 acres and out on the coast the
Quien Fire was being contained at 486 acres by
CAL FIRE San Benito-Monterey Unit.
That same day the
Stevens Fire broke out in the Stevens Creek drainage in a very rugged, Oak and scrub land but populated urban interface filled with multi-million dollar homes, the CAL FIRE SCU Unit hit the fire hard with large wildland fire resource response including calling Tanker 910(DC-10) to make a few 12,000 gallon drops on the fire and stretching over 50,000 feet of line across the terrain before containment at 151 acres.
September started out right away on the first day of the month with The
Butler fire in the
San Bernardino National Forest west of Big Bear Lake which was contained quickly and held to 85 acres, The next day the
North Fire 2,200 acres broke out in the
Angeles National Forest.and again on the next day September 2nd the
Lick Fire started by a resident's burn barrel began burning into the rugged and dry Henry Coe State Park which had not seen a fire or public vehicle access in forty years and was finally contained at 47,760 acres becoming one of Santa Clara Counties largest historical fires.
Also on September 3rd the
human caused Moonlight Fire started, Becoming plume driven it would burn 64,997 acres before containment and the
Mariposa Fire another 176 acres.
September 10th the
Colina Fire was fought with a unified command,
CAL FIRE Riverside Unit / Riverside County Fire departments held it to 430 acres of vegetation burned, Two days later the
Pine Fire in the
Cleveland National Forest consumed 2,170 acres South of Pine Valley.
Two more days and the
Butler 2 fire 14, 039 acres started in the
San Bernardino National Forest North of Big Bear.
Then the
Angel Fire 837 acres near Julian two days later.
Fuels were heating up and drying out to record low moisture levels never before recorded in California History.
Then October arrived bringing in the first Santa Ana winds of the year and perfect Firestorm conditions. Numerous vegetation fires were caught and stopped early all over the State of California during the first weeks of October with Cal FIRE sending large full wild land responses including all aircraft on the first bell and sizing them up later.
Then during the last week of October Southern California exploded in fire and soon over 500,000 people would be evacuated from the Southern California Wildland firestorms.
Beginning with the
Ranch Fire 58,401 acres deep in the
Angeles National Forest lands of Los Angeles County started on October 20th and which would not be 100% controlled until the middle of December. Then the next day San Diego County Ranch lands ignited in a firestorm called the
Harris Fire 90,440 acres started by illegal migrants in an area just above the Mexican border Eight people were killed by the Harris Wildfire in San Diego County, which also seriously injured four firefighters and a teenage boy and consumed hundreds of homes in the rural communities along the U.S.-Mexico border east of San Diego.
That same day brought us the
Canyon Fire and the Sedgewick Fire 710 acres,
McCoy Fire 353 acres,
Roca Fire 270 acres,
October Fire 20 acres,
Nightsky Fire 35 acres,
Buckweed Fire 38,000 acres,
Santiago Fire 28,400 acres in Orange County.
The rash of fires breaking out continued the next day with the
Witch Fire 197,990 acres before she was done and
Walker Fire 160 acres in San Bernardino County,
The Rosa Fire 411 acres in Riverside County,
Magic Fire 2,824 acres
in Los Angeles County, Cajon Fire 250 acres and the
Grass Valley Fire 1,247 acres burning in the
San Bernardino National Forest and the
Coronado Hills Fire 250 acres and
Rice Fire 9,472 acres started in San Diego county.
A week later the
Slide Fire 12,759 acres.
The new starts continued on the 23rd with the
Poomacha Fire 49,410 acres,
and Ammo Fire 21,004 acres
breaking out in San Diego County.
November delivered the arson caused Malibu canyon fire called the
Corral Fire 4,901 acres burned in a dense wildland urban interface chasing 14,000 Residents from their homes and destroying 53 residences this fire was apparently caused by a campfire and carelessness combined with alcohol during Red Flag conditions.
December left us in Constant Red Flag conditions, The ZACA 2 Fire perimeter held at 240,207 acres burned and never did receive any appreciable rain and it was the end of a Historic California wild land fire year.
Welcome to California Wildland Fire season 2008
