California wildfires still 'growing faster than you can imagine'

LAKEPORT, Calif. -- Firefighters made small but promising headway Monday on the two main fires bedeviling Northern California, but nobody was prepared to say the danger was over as the flames in Redding and near Clear Lake were being beaten away from homes and into wilderness areas.

The worst of the threat remained in the resort towns on the western edge of Clear Lake, where the 55,987-acre Mendocino Complex fire surged to within a mile of the city of Lakeport, before being shoved back another mile by an army of fire crews and water-dropping helicopters.

The string of little communities hugging the lake's northern shoreline, normally bustling with boats and fishermen this time of year, sat empty after emergency officials shooed more than 15,000 people away to safer locations southward over the weekend and Monday.

Rob Brown, a Lake County supervisor and veteran of earlier blazes in the area, said firefighters are ``doing what they can to keep it out of populated areas, and so far they've made great progress.''

The fire was turning toward the Mendocino National Forest, but fickle winds could drive it toward houses again any time. By late Monday afternoon, the Mendocino Complex had destroyed six buildings and was 5 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

Farther north, firefighters were getting a grip on the devastating Carr Fire around Redding, which in one week has killed six people, burned up 98,724 acres, consumed 723 homes and nearly 1,000 structures total, and forced massive evacuations.

Seven days after the Carr Fire roared to life, thousands of firefighters were beginning to slow its spread, allowing some of the 38,000 evacuees in Redding to return home as the city started its recovery.

The massive conflagration was 20 percent contained Monday.

``It's progress,'' said Mary Eldridge, a Cal Fire spokeswoman. ``If the weather's with us and firefighters stay healthy, we will continue to battle and make progress.''

Around the state, crews were stretched to the limit to combat at least 17 major blazes from San Diego to the Oregon border -- with one of those, the stubborn Ferguson Fire, continuing to force the closure of Yosemite National Park because of overwhelming smoke.

The Ferguson, which ignited July 13 in the Sierra National Forest, has consumed 56,659 acres and was 30 percent contained Monday. Yosemite officials said they intend to reopen the park at 4 p.m. Friday.

Cal Fire spokeswoman Heather Williams said 12,000 firefighters were battling infernos across the state, with the help of crews from at least a dozen other states. More than 52,000 people have been evacuated, an exceptionally high number for this time in the fire season, which usually hits its peak in September and October.

``What we're seeing is that one minute these fires are 100 acres, and the next minute they're growing faster than you can imagine,'' Williams said. ``That was a common trend last year, and now here again it's only July. Usually evacuations were pretty rare by this time.''

Kelly Huston, spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Services, said the state's fire response crews are ``stretched and basically getting toward maximum.''

``It's sort of bad luck of the draw that this fire season has started with such a bang,'' he said. ``Maybe it's a combination of drought conditions, long-term issues with tree mortality, climate change maybe causing the worse winds. There's no one thing you can point to it. It's a bunch of factors making these fires harder to fight than before.''

Of all the wildfires in Northern California, the combined twin blazes outside of Clear Lake posed the most immediate threat to homes as dawn broke on Monday.

Engines, planes and battalions of firefighters attacked the Medocino Complex just outside the borders of 5,000-population Lakeport, the county seat of Lake County, and any hold on the fire line was tenuous at best. Bait shops and jet-ski rental businesses were closed with a full evacuation in effect. Fast-food chains and motels were locked up. An eerie fog of smoke hovered over the still waters of the lake.

Among those evacuated from Lakeport were 286 prisoners from the Lake County Jail. They were bused far south to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, which was just a little more than half full and as the sixth largest jail in the United States had plenty of room, according to Alameda County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly. The jail also housed prisoners from Butte County last year during the Oroville Dam emergency and forced evacuations.

``We'll hold onto them as long as they need the relief up there,'' Kelly said.

Firefighters said searing summer temperatures and dry grass and timber were creating challenging conditions to beat back the blaze, even as more than 1,300 personnel joined in the battle above Lakeport to protect the waterfront hamlet.

Along Highway 29 in Kelseyville, several cars and motorhomes had pulled over in dirt pullouts or parking lots, finding temporary refuge from the fire.

``The sheriff came by with his sirens on and said, 'You people, out of here,''' said Thomas Moore, 76, who fled late Sunday from northern Lakeport with his wife Glenda and their dog, Annie.

The Moores were parked in front of Kelseyville Lumber, where the owner was letting evacuees sleep in their cars.

``I have a bucket seat that reclines so that helps a little bit,'' said Moore, commenting on the rough slumber in his Nissan Versa. ``We might try to stay in the motel up the road tonight.''

On Monday afternoon, Kelseyville was added to the evacuation zone.

Authorities did not say when the evacuation orders would lift, but it won't be before crews push the fire farther from the lake.

About two miles west of the shoreline on Highway 175, where flames were chewing up patches of pine trees and racing through brush, firefighters attacked the lead edge of the River Fire, the southernmost of the two blazes that constitute the Mendocino Complex.

The fire, which began Friday north of Hopland in rural Mendocino County, has burned steadily to the east. A handful of structures have burned, but the biggest fear was the fire getting to the lake and tearing into the tiny communities set along its edge.

Six helicopters, 37 bulldozers and 118 fire engines were part of the fight to stop the complex.

The Ranch Fire, which began Friday up north near the Mendocino County community of Potter Valley, was similarly headed east, threatening the community of Upper Lake.