[env-trinity] Fire Sweeps Through Trinity

[Patrick Truman]

            Elisha Page / Record Searchlight 

            THIS WAY: Louie Avila points firefighter Bob Foxworthy, who is based in Dobbins in Yuba County, to a trail he can use to survey a slow-burning fireworking its way toward Avila's home on Slattery Gulch Road west of Weaverville on Sunday afternoon.
           
      Fire sweeps through Trinity 
      More than 3,100 acres are burned, homes threatened 

      By Rob Rogers, Record Searchlight
      July 31, 2006 

      WEAVERVILLE - Louie Avila stood outside the small, brown home he rents in the hills west of town and watched as smoke billowed a short 100 yards from his front door. 

      The Junction Fire, which has charred more than 3,100 acres of forest between Junction City and Weaverville, had burned all around the area where Avila lives, moving east toward Weaverville and away from his house. 

      Avila's house sits at the end of a dirt road, uncomfortably nestled between the feet of two hillsides, both in flames Sunday. 

      Parked in his driveway was a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection fire engine and three firefighters ready to move against the flames should the fire speed up or get close to the building. 

      "It's backing down the ridge," said Bob Foxworthy, one of the firefighters stationed at the house. 

      The winds picked up around 1 p.m. Sunday, and the fire northwest of the town grew and began moving back on itself, burning west instead of east, down the hillside toward Avila's home. 

      "If they tell me to go, I'm not going to argue," he said late Sunday afternoon. 

      Smoke curled and billowed, obscuring much of the terrain from view. But the sounds - almost a sizzle, like sand being poured down a slide - penetrated the gray clouds as trees ignited and flames licked the underbrush. 

      "I've been close," Avila said. "Never this close." 

      Highway 299, which had been closed Saturday night and Sunday morning, was reopened Sunday afternoon, with California Department of Transportation pilot cars escorting vehicles between Weaverville and Junction City. A few hours later, officials also opened Oregon Road to traffic. 

      As of 9 p.m. Sunday, CDF officials reported one structure destroyed by the fire and one serious injury. Officials estimated the fire was about 30 percent contained. 

      The fire is burning in much the same area as the 2001 Oregon Fire, but flames have not reached Weaverville, as they did in 2001. 

      Residents living west of the city, Avila included, were evacuated Saturday night. Many returned when the highway was reopened. 

      Also evacuated Saturday were 30 patients from Mountain Community Medical Services in Weaverville, who were sent to medical facilities in Redding.Mountain Community's emergency room, however, remained open. 

      Avila sent his 12-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter to relatives in Weaverville when the fire first flared up Saturday. He spent half the night in a trailer park down the road from his house, where others in the area had been evacuated. After hours of trying to sleep in his car, he decided just to return to his home. The decision was difficult, he said. 

      "I had no idea how fast a fire could move until yesterday," he said Sunday. 

      With the Junction Fire still hot, the Redding area can look forward to another smoky morning today, a weather forecaster said. 

      Smoke billowing from the Junction Fire likely will be trapped near the ground under a nighttime inversion layer, said Steve Leach, a meteorologist at the Redding Fire Weather Center. 

      Inversion layers form on clear, relatively calm nights as the earth radiates heat into space. The cooler, heavier air will seep into the low-lying canyons and valleys, then hug the ground.Temperature increases with elevation under these conditions - hence the term "inversion layer." 

      Afternoon heating mixes the air and blots out the inversion layer, Leach said.Winds from the south also will blow smoke away from the Redding area. 

      The far northern Sacramento Valley will likely be less smoky than the mountain canyons of Trinity and Siskiyou counties, Leach said."We'll have some periodic bad spells in the valley," said Leach. "But air quality in the canyons will be very bad for days, maybe even weeks." 
     
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20060731/ec9380a8/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: spacer.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 43 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20060731/ec9380a8/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: junction31a_d.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 10291 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20060731/ec9380a8/attachment.jpg>