N. Calif. Fire Destroys 84 Homes, Threatens Town

A devastatingly swift, wind-fanned fire hopscotched through 15,000 acres of the state’s historic Gold Country on Monday, injuring two firefighters, destroying 84 homes, 54 barns and other outbuildings and threatening to consume this entire resort town.

Grim sheriff’s deputies evacuated about 4,000 people from Rough and Ready and two other towns, Lake Wildwood and Penn Valley, in the path of the blaze, which fire officials in nearby Grass Valley said was sparked by an itinerant who illegally burned toilet paper and other refuse in the area’s dangerously dry, drought-cured foothills.

The two firefighters were injured when their truck got caught in flames in a subdivision called Wildwood Heights, west of Lake Wildwood. One firefighter suffered leg burns and was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital. The other man suffered less severe burns and was treated at the scene.

Fire information officer Charlie Jakobs of the California Department of Forestry said that by late afternoon Monday, about 30 hours after it began, the fire had caused an estimated $9 million in damage to homes and other properties in western Nevada County.

The fire, which started along California 49--named for the 1849 Gold Rush towns it winds among--was about 40% contained by late afternoon, but officials hoped to make a successful stand as the fire bore down on Rough and Ready and establish fire lines on 75% of the blaze perimeter by early this morning.

Winds gusting up to 40 m.p.h. and a distressingly dry humidity reading of only 8% had made such estimates tricky in the past, Jakobs added.

“The fire lay down a little last night, but picked up again this morning,” he said.

“All the elements for disaster were there,” fire information officer Ralph Rutherford said. “Rough terrain, flat grasslands, manzanita brush and lots of very nice homes.”

Some of the resort homes in the Lake Wildwood area are worth as much as $500,000, local residents said. Much of the lakeside community, however, was in ashes at day’s end; its marina also was lost and at least five pleasure boats burned to their waterlines.

“We just had a woman here, frantic and near tears, who just saw her neighbor’s brand new dream home go up--pfffffft!--like that,” said Jon Peek, a veterinarian located between Grass Valley and Rough and Ready. “They had just finished it and hadn’t even had a chance to move in from the trailer on the property.”

Anxious Gathering

In Rough and Ready, a charming town of little more than a couple of antique shops, a post office, grocery store, service station and village blacksmith, residents from the surrounding, flaming foothills gathered anxiously in the parking lot of Bill’s Rough and Ready Market to watch a nasty wall of purple, brown and gray smoke shoot up from the tinder-dry canyons where they had just left their homes.

“They had people on fire trucks with loudspeakers driving through saying, ‘Get out! Get out now!’ ” said Jim Millett, a big, strapping man whose moist eyes gave away his inner fears. “It (the fire) was moving very fast at that point--surprisingly fast.”

State and local fire trucks whizzed down the tiny main street of town with sirens wailing, scrambling from one front to another in the erratic blaze. Residents watched in stunned silence that was broken only by an occasional “Oh, my God!” as a new plume of smoke crested over the only ridge separating the tiny village from the massive fire.

“I’m just keeping my faith,” said Sue Fay, a 22-year resident of the area who had been house-sitting out of town when the fire broke out and had been unable to get to her house to retrieve any of her belongings. “My house has everything I own--everything. I think it’s safe. I hope it’s safe. Oh, it’s all so sad.”

“All you can do is watch and pray,” said one man who declined to give his name. “The fire is so fickle.”

“Believe me,” added a neighbor who overheard his remarks, “I have been praying and praying and praying and praying.”

Evacuation Order

At 3:15 p.m. Monday, a Nevada County sheriff’s deputy pulled into the market parking lot and ordered the final and complete evacuation of the town. With the fire very obviously inching closer by the minute, few had to be instructed twice.

“So many of those people just can’t even get fire insurance, so they have absolutely nothing to fall back on,” said market owner Bill Baumgarten as he prepared to close down his business and flee.

Evacuees were taken to a veteran’s hall in nearby Grass Valley or a local high school in Nevada City. Both towns are picturesque hillside Gold Rush relics; both also may be threatened by the fire if it is not diverted or held at bay.

More than 1,700 firefighters were brought in by the California Department of Forestry, the state Office of Emergency Services and the U.S. Forest Service. Several airborne tankers also were assigned to the blaze, but their effectiveness was seriously hampered by dense smoke.

The fire command post at the Nevada County Fairgrounds jumped with activity as firefighters and equipment from throughout the state continued to pour into the area about 50 miles northeast of Sacramento. So many teams of firefighters had arrived that there was a temporary shortage of the distinctive yellow and olive Nomex fire-resistant uniforms being provided for firefighters, officials said.

The fire, which began northwest of Nevada City and was pushed southwest by strong and consistent winds, threatened for a time on Monday to overwhelm the rural area’s water system. Fire-caused power outages blocked water from being pumped from reservoir to storage tank.

Altogether, nearly a dozen fires, including a smaller blaze in Nevada County, destroyed nearly 30,000 acres of timber and brush in five rural Northern California counties Monday.

A separate fire about 80 miles west of Lake Wildwood in the Coast Range of Sonoma County blackened more than 10 square miles, destroyed two structures and threatened the Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s geothermal plant north of Geyersville.

Four fires burned in Humboldt and Del Norte counties on the coast about 175 miles north of San Francisco, including 2,500 acres burning near the mouth of the Klamath River, and another 4,600 acres near Shelter Cove in southern Humboldt County. The Shelter Cove fire, which has been burning since Labor Day, was better than 90% controlled, but firefighters had no estimate of containment of the Klamath River fire, which broke out Sunday.

Firefighters also battled a 1,400-acre blaze in Rumsey Canyon in Yolo County, about 50 miles north of Sacramento. A 50-acre fire near Crescent City in Del Norte County, which had threatened the under-construction Pelican Bay Prison, was expected to be contained by Monday night.

In Sacramento, Gov. George Deukmejian was briefed by state fire officials on the wind-whipped Nevada County fire and others throughout Northern California. Bill Teie, chief of fire control operations for the Department of Forestry, said the itinerant arrested for accidentally starting the Nevada County fire likely will not be prosecuted.

Teie noted that the suspect’s dwelling burned down and that he probably has no financial resources to reimburse government agencies for the cost of fighting the fire. “In this particular case, there probably will be no action,” Teie said. “Everything he owned probably burned up.”

Deukmejian noted that several state and many local agencies were involved in fighting the Nevada County fire and told reporters: “Everything is being done that can be done. We’re hoping that we’ll get this one under control as quickly as possible. . . . We have every bit of equipment and manpower that we need right now to fight it.”

Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this story from Sacramento.