North Complex is now fifth-deadliest, sixth-largest wildfire in California history
The deadly North Complex wildfire continues to burn in Northern California amid improved fire weather conditions, but rugged terrain has challenged fire crews, and the continued presence of smoke has reduced the effectiveness of air support.
The complex is now estimated at 273,335 acres, burning mainly in Butte and Plumas counties, and is reportedly 36% contained, the U.S. Forest Service and Cal Fire said in Wednesday morning incident updates.
That size, equal to about 427 square miles, makes the North Complex the sixth-largest wildfire in modern California history, according to Cal Fire records dating back to 1932. It had been in the No. 8 spot on Tuesday.
Fifteen people have died in the wildfire, all of them civilians. All died within the complex’s West Zone, which Cal Fire says is 77,671 acres and 30% contained as of Wednesday evening.
Early last week, the West Zone — known as the Bear Fire at that time — raged southwest from the North Complex’s origin point near Plumas National Forest and jumped the Middle Fork of the Feather River, devastating communities north of Lake Oroville. Spreading at incredible speed due to gusts above 50 mph, the West Zone quickly destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, and leveled the town of Berry Creek, which had a population of about 1,200.
Butte County sheriff’s and coroner’s officials have now named 12 of the 15 victims killed by the wildfire. Two of those names, Mark Delagardie, 61, and Kin Lee, 64, both of Berry Creek, were released Wednesday evening.
Ten were residents of Berry Creek, and two lived in Feather Falls a few miles to the southeast. Two of the identified Berry Creek victims packed up, but chose not to evacuate after receiving “erroneous” information about the fire’s containment level, Sheriff-Coroner Kory Honea said Monday evening.
The West Zone and, by extension, the North Complex are now tied with two others for the fifth-deadliest wildfire in state history, Cal Fire says. The West Zone has destroyed at least 865 structures, many of them homes in Butte and Plumas counties, and continues to threaten more than 23,000 others in those two counties, as well as north Yuba, the agency says.
Mandatory evacuation orders remain in place for Berry Creek, Brush Creek, Big Bend and Feather Falls in Butte County; for La Porte and Bucks Lake in Plumas County; and communities north and east of Brownsville in Yuba County, including Challenge, Forbestown, Woodleaf, Clipper Mils and Strawberry Valley.
Orders for the Butte County community of Cherokee were reduced from mandatory to an evacuation warning on Tuesday. The city of Oroville and the towns of Palermo and Honcut had their warnings lifted over the weekend, sheriff’s officials said.
Over the weekend, National Weather Service forecasters predicted gusty wind conditions for the northeast corner of the state, including the area of the North Complex, and issued a red flag warning for this Monday due to critical fire weather. However, Cal Fire says those heavy winds didn’t end up materializing in the immediate fire zone, averting the possibility of another major flare-up.
More sustained winds cleared out some of the stagnant smoke Monday and Tuesday, which improved visibility enough to allow aircraft to assist ground efforts on the blaze. But visibility hasn’t always been sufficient for air support, and Cal Fire says that on Tuesday, “a few times, smoke developed over the fire which hampered aircraft utilization.”
Cal Fire’s Wednesday morning situation report says there have been “some injuries” to firefighters working in “dangerous and rugged terrain” with difficult access in the West Zone, which is burning in hilly areas between Lake Oroville and Plumas National Forest. But the first responder injury total in Cal Fire’s report still lists only one such injury, which the state fire agency said previously was not severe.
Cal Fire is the lead agency for the West Zone of the complex, while the Forest Service is managing the South and North zones of the fire. The Forest Service says containment lines on those two zones are holding up despite light to moderate fire behavior. Close to 3,500 firefighters are fighting the complex, more than 2,100 of them assigned to the West Zone.
California’s 2020 wildfire season is already the largest ever recorded. Cal Fire said Tuesday that more than 16,000 firefighters were continuing to work 25 major wildfires throughout the state. Those 25 fires have burned a combined 2.8 million acres; hundreds of smaller ones have combined for hundreds of thousands more acres.
With the growth of the North Complex, four of the six largest wildfires in state history are currently burning without full containment. The August Complex, by far the largest at about 796,000 acres, is 30% contained near Mendocino National Forest in Tehama County. The SCU Lightning Complex, burning in multiple South Bay counties, is No. 3 all-time at 396,000 acres and is 98% contained. No. 4 in state history, the LNU Lightning Complex, is over 363,000 acres and is also 98% contained.
And if the North Complex grows more than another 8,500 acres, it will overtake the Thomas Fire, which burned 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in December 2017, to become California’s fifth-largest wildfire ever recorded.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 9:13 AM.
