Optimism, Confidence Grow on Fire Lines

Aided by cooler temperatures, less wind and progress in cutting new fire lines, officials expressed “cautious optimism” Wednesday about the dozen or so lightning-sparked wildfires still burning in Trinity County.

“Things are looking pretty optimistic right now,” said Mel Ingeroi, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Land Management in Hayfork.

Other officials said the feeling along most fire lines, where 4,559 firefighters have been battling the blazes, is “confident but not complacent.”

“I’m a little reluctant to say we are too confident because we’ve been caught short before by fires that lay down and then flare up,” said Bob Ceriani of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Structures Burned

Meanwhile, in Southern California, a fast-moving fire, believed to have been started by an arsonist, broke out about 3:15 p.m Wednesday in an area west of Perris in Riverside County. But by late evening, the fire was contained, after it had consumed 700 acres, including one ranch home, a garage and a shed, Riverside County Fire Department spokeswoman Leah Spann said.

The home on Santa Rosa Mine Road, owned by William Gerhardt, was described by authorities as a total loss.

Gerhardt’s son, Red, said he and a brother tried to save the house and several classic automobiles on the property with garden hoses, but the flames and smoke were too intense.

“We lost everything,” he said, but added that several Apaloosa horses and other livestock on the ranch survived.

In Orange County Wednesday afternoon, another blaze of suspicious origin brought about 500 firefighters and 11 air tankers to battle flames in the Silverado Canyon area of the Cleveland National Forest. By nightfall it had consumed as much as 1,500 acres, fire officials said.

Nearest Homes

“We’re throwing everything at it,” Dick Marlow, U.S. Forest Service spokesman, said of the blaze located about 15 miles due east of Santa Ana. “In that country (500 firefighters) is not many. It’s real steep terrain. It’s going to be a lot of work getting a line around it.”

The fire, which began about 2:15 p.m., was burning chaparral in an easterly direction and crossed the Riverside-Orange County line about dusk. No structures were threatened, officials said, adding that there was no estimated time for containment.

“We haven’t had any lightning lately,” Marlow said, “so it was probably person-caused.”

A series of lightning strikes in Northern California that began Aug. 28 has touched off a total of 1,241 fires. The blazes have burned a total of 542,019 acres, officials said Wednesday.

Four fires remain “top priority,” state forestry spokeswoman Robyn Lawton said. They are the Shasta-Trinity fire, which has burned 78,960 acres, a 120,421-acre blaze in the Klamath National Forest, a 69,620-acre fire in the Mendocino National Forest and one that has burned 128,219 acres in the Stanislaus National Forest.

Remote Town

In the Shasta-Trinity complex, however, the Gulch and Lucy fires on the western edge of Trinity County are both listed as fully contained. Earlier, the Gulch fire had threatened the small, remote town of Hyampom.

Other small towns, including Peanut, Trinity Pines and Forest Glen, are still listed as “threatened,” even though there is no immediate threat to any of them, including Trinity Pines, the only community evacuated so far.

Also threatened was River Spirit, an extremely remote commune along a part of the south fork of the Trinity River, about 15 miles southwest of Hayfork.

State Forestry Department spokesman Jeff Stephens said the commune is believed to house eight people, including one pregnant woman. A fire engine and crew arrived Wednesday morning and the firefighters began cutting fire lines to contain the blaze, which was reported moving very slowly. No one was evacuated, he said.

“We base threats on potential,” said Todd Durham, a Forestry Department spokesman at a forward fire camp six miles south of Hayfork. “The fires are not moving because there’s no wind, but there is so much fuel and the fuel is so hot that any wind could come up and--whoosh--it could really go.”

“It’s like a sleeping giant,” Ceriani said. “If these weather conditions change, it could wake up grumpy and cause problems.”

A high-tension power transmission line that cuts across Trinity County between Sacramento and Eureka was declared out of danger and put back in service, said Ingeroi of the Bureau of Land Management.

Weather forecasters were predicting conditions to remain the same, with temperatures in the upper 70s, along with a continued, stubborn inversion layer, in which cooler air is trapped under warmer air. The inversion layer also traps the smoke, making it difficult to see and breathe, but inhibits the spread of the fires.

Some high clouds moving in from the coast could cause some “scattered thunderstorms late Thursday and again Friday over the northern Sierra,” according to Cary Schudy of the Earth Environment Service, a private San Francisco-based weather service.

The Peanut fire, which for a time earlier this week threatened Hayfork, as well as Peanut and Trinity Pines, was almost completely contained. But, fire officials added, several stubborn hot spots were challenging the southernmost fire lines near Trinity Pines, and improved lines were being cut.

Most other fires in Trinity County were between 20% and 40% contained, officials reported. The only exception was the 1,000-acre Wallow fire, which was backing down Bear Wallow Mountain. The blaze was so remote that fire crews with bulldozers had only “pioneered” a trail to the fire by Tuesday. Until the crews arrived, the Wallow fire had been the county’s last major blaze left burning on its own.

Like most of the fires in the area, Wallow was burning slowly and putting out a lot of smoke, firefighters said.

“They are just ‘skunking around,’ ” said Ceriani, who was on his way to his first shower in over a week. “It’s not a big wall of flame like some people might imagine. It just burns real slow along the ground, and once in a while catches some low-hanging branches and sets off a tree.”

Elsewhere, a total of 116,000 acres had burned in Oregon, although state fire officials said 72,800 acres of the total were either contained or controlled.

In Idaho, officials reported no change in the status of two large fires, one in central Idaho that had burned 10,000 acres and was declared controlled, and another 20,000-acre blaze left to burn out of control in wilderness land in the southwest portion of the state.

A brush fire on the island of Hawaii that had been described as the worst in the 71-year history of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park had grown to 14,000 acres by late Wednesday, most of it grasslands. Containment was predicted for late today.

Mark A. Stein reported from Hayfork and Penelope McMillan from Los Angeles.