Zogg Fire in Shasta County explodes to 7,000 acres amid ‘extreme’ wind gusts

Find Monday’s wildfire updates here: Thousands evacuated, homes threatened, winery burns in Northern California

Original story

A wildfire burning in Shasta County has exploded in size Sunday evening, quickly prompting mandatory evacuations as “extremely critical” weather conditions including heavy wind gusts are sweeping across Northern California.

The Zogg Fire sparked south of Whiskeytown and less than 15 miles southwest of Redding, Cal Fire’s Shasta-Trinity unit said around 3 p.m., first reported by the agency at 50 acres.

The wildfire roared to 7,000 acres by 7:30 p.m. after a previous 5 p.m. update estimated it at 1,000 acres.

The fire started near Zogg Mine Road and Jenny Bird Lane, just north of Igo. Evacuations have been ordered in the immediate area, including Zogg Mine Road, south along the Gas Point corridor, along with Platina Road west through the Shasta-Tehama county line.

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, a national reserve, is also closed due to the fire.

Within an hour of flames first becoming visible, the wildfire started producing a huge smoke plume, time lapses from nearby cameras with the AlertWildfire network showed. As afternoon turned to evening, the hills north of the small town of Igo, where about 700 people live, were engulfed in flames, cameras showed.

The fire started Sunday during red flag warning fire weather conditions encompassing most of the north half of the state that will remain in place through Monday evening.

“Extremely critical fire weather conditions near the vicinity of the #ZoggFire,” the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office of the National Weather Service tweeted just before 5:30 p.m. “North winds are gusting to 30-40 mph with relative humidity values of 5-10%.”

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

This story was originally published September 27, 2020 at 5:47 PM.