Fires Plague State From North Coast to Deserts

Wildfires burned Wednesday in the pastoral hillsides of California’s north coast and the rugged desert highlands in the south, an outbreak that fire officials regarded uneasily as the opening of a potentially long and trying summer season.

Inventions of man and nature alike were responsible. Winds blew drought-dried trees into power lines in Sonoma County, sparking a fire that consumed several century-old structures. In Southern California, a smoldering cigarette and an overheated motor-home transmission started two blazes that occupied hundreds of firefighters across a remote stretch of Riverside County. Several smallers fires also were reported around the state.

Though of less than historic proportions, the rash of fires underscored extraordinary perils that officials fear await California and much of the nation. This state and many others have been beset by drought, strong winds and high temperatures--prime conditions for brush and forest fires.

Potential for Disaster

“We really have the potential for a disastrous season,” Gil Werder, a battalion chief for the California Division of Forestry and Fire Protection, said Wednesday as he surveyed the ruins left by the fire that raced through the historic Sonoma County community of Preston.

At the Boise Interagency Fire Center, which serves as a national hub for firefighting efforts, officials said they were prepared for a season that will tax their ability to shuttle crews around the country as needed. In more normal years, fire seasons run at different times in different regions, an accident of nature that allows crews and equipment to be shifted from hot spot to hot spot.

This year, however, there appears to be a greater chance of regional fire seasons overlapping. An official listed 21 states--from Washington to Michigan, from South Carolina to California--that have been baked dry by hot weather and drought.

“When we get fire activity everywhere at once it really stretches us,” said Arnold Hartigan, a public affairs officer at the center. “. . . It’s just a matter now of when is it going to hit.”

Compounding fire season hazards nationally, spring rains were just frequent enough to allow grass and underbrush to flourish. By now, the new plant life has dried, providing additional fuel for fires.

So far, the biggest fire has been a 58,000-acre blaze that burned through portions of the Custer National Forest in Montana and South Dakota. That fire was described Wednesday as being nearly extinguished.

California, in its second summer of drought, seems especially primed for a hectic fire season. Throughout the state, officials said, grasses and underbrush are drier than usual, winds are blowing exceptionally strong, humidity levels have dropped and hot weather has arrived early.

“It is just settling in to be a real rough summer,” said Lisa Boyd, assistant fire information officer at California Division of Forestry headquarters in Sacramento. “Everything has dried out about a month early. We are not panicking, yet, but we do have the Fourth of July coming up. With all the conditions and the fireworks, it could be a disaster if people are not careful.”

Also, lightning storms last week crackled through the Sierra, raising the possibility that “sleeper” fires still smolder undetected and could be fanned into greater blazes.

Boyd said a sense that the fire season had arrived began to visit officials over the last two weeks and set in firmly Tuesday with the start of major fires at either end of the state.

On Tuesday, two fires broke out about 70 miles north of San Francisco near the Russian River. Both were started when winds pushed sparking power lines against trees and brush. The worst destroyed the Preston Mansion, a 17-room wooden structure built more than a century ago as the centerpiece for an early holistic health commune. The mansion had been undergoing renovation.

“It just came roaring up the hill,” Linda Ellis, caretaker of the privately owned estate, recalled Wednesday. “The fire was moving faster than you can run.”

Consumed in the fire were four houses and 12 other structures that comprised an artist colony in the rural hamlet north of Cloverdale near the border of Mendocino and Sonoma Counties.

Only sagebrush stood in the way of two man-started fires burning in Riverside County. One fire, started by a smoldering cigarette, had burned 1,000 acres by late Wednesday near Cabazon Peak. A smaller blaze, near the Morongo Indian Reservation, claimed 150 acres of brushland.

Rugged terrain made it difficult to move crews near both fires, and so the battle was being waged with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. “It’s strictly an air show,” said Joanne Evans, a state forestry division fire information officer.

Smaller brush fires also were fought and contained in the San Fernando Valley and in San Luis Obispo, Ventura and Calaveras counties.

Gillman reported from Cloverdale, Calif., and King from Los Angeles.