Thousands of people remained under evacuation orders Saturday after a windswept wildfire ripped through rural Northern California, injuring people and burning an unknown number of homes.
The blaze that started Friday near a wood products plant quickly broke out in a neighborhood on the far north side of Weed, but then pushed the flames away from the town of about 2,600 people.
Evacuees described heavy smoke and chunks of ash raining down.
Annie Peterson said she was sitting on the porch of her home near Roseburg Forest Products, which makes wood veneers, when “all of a sudden we heard a big boom and all this smoke was rolling toward us.”
Very quickly, his house and a dozen others were on fire. She said members of her church helped evacuate her and her son, who is motionless. He said the scene of smoke and flames looked like “the world was ending”.
Suzi Brady, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire, said several people were injured.
Allison Hendrickson, spokeswoman for Dignity Health North State Hospitals, said two people were taken to Mercy Medical Center Mount Shasta. One was in stable condition and the other was taken to UC Davis Medical Center, which has a burn unit.
Rebecca Taylor, director of communications for Springfield, Ore.-based Roseburg Forest Products, said it’s unclear whether the fire started near or on the company’s property.
He said a large vacant building on the edge of the company’s property burned. All employees were evacuated and no injuries were reported.
The blaze, dubbed the Mill Fire, was pushed by 35 mph (56 km/h) winds and quickly engulfed four square miles (10.3 square kilometers) of land.
McKinney fire flames consume trees along California Highway 96 in Klamath National Forest, California [File: Noah Berger/AP]
The flames raced through dry grass like stubble, bushes and wood. About 7,500 people around Weed and several nearby communities were under evacuation orders.
Deborah Higer, medical director of Shasta View Nursing Center, said all 23 patients at the facility were evacuated, 20 went to local hospitals and three stayed at their homes, where hospital beds were set up.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Siskiyou County and said a federal grant had been received “to help ensure the availability of vital firefighting resources.”
It was the third major wildfire in as many days in California, which has been in the grip of a prolonged drought and is now reeling under a heat wave that was expected to push temperatures above 100F (38C) in many areas until Day of Work
Thousands were also ordered to flee Wednesday from a wildfire in Castaic, north of Los Angeles, and from a wildfire in eastern San Diego County near the Mexican border where two people died badly burned and several houses were destroyed. These fires were 56 percent and 65 percent contained, respectively, and all evacuations had been lifted.
The heat taxed the state’s power grid as people tried to stay cool. For the fourth day, residents were asked to conserve energy on Saturday during the afternoon and evening hours.
The mill fire was burning an hour’s drive from the Oregon state line.
The entire region has faced repeated devastating forest fires in recent years. The Mill fire was only about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of where the McKinney fire, the state’s deadliest of the year, broke out in late July. It killed four people and destroyed dozens of houses.
A helicopter drops water as it battles the Oak Fire in Mariposa County, California [File: Noah Berger/AP]
Olga Hood fled her Weed home Friday as smoke billowed over the next hill.
With the notorious gusts sweeping through the city at the base of Mount Shasta, he didn’t wait for an evacuation order. She packed her documents, her medicine and little else, her granddaughter, Cynthia Jones, said.
“With the wind in Weed, everything moves quickly. It’s bad,” Jones said by phone from his home in Medford, Ore.
Hood’s home of nearly three decades was spared from a fire last year and from the devastating Boles fire that swept through the city eight years ago, destroying more than 160 buildings, mostly homes.
Scientists say climate change has made the western United States warmer and drier over the past three decades and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
In the past five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive wildfires in the state’s history.