Wildfire updates: Dixie Fire, at 200k acres, is California’s 14th largest fire of all time

The Dixie Fire roared back to life Monday night after a brief respite, expanding by 10,000 acres and continuing to threaten homes in Butte, Plumas and Tehama counties.

The fire now spans 208,200 acres (325 square miles), making it California’s 14th-largest fire by acreage. Over 5,100 firefighters are battling the blaze, which ignited July 13 above the Cresta Dam in Feather River Canyon.

The state fire agency reported containment at 23% as of Tuesday morning, up one percentage point from the prior evening.

Cooler temperatures and slightly elevated humidity slowed fire expansion slightly Monday, said incident meteorologist Julia Ruthford in a Monday evening briefing. But the mild weather was not enough to keep the fire under control in the evening, when winds whipped it back up.

“(Weather) change has been the big thing that has driven a lot of what we’ve seen,” said fire behavior analyst John Cook at the Tuesday morning briefing. “The fuels out there are so dry because of the drought that a little bit of tweak (in the wind) changes the fire.”

Ruthford said that Tuesday would once again be “cooler with somewhat milder humidities.” But, starting Wednesday, hot temperatures and low humidities should return, which could lead to critical fire weather. Wind direction is also forecast to change, beginning to blow down the canyon toward more populated areas of Butte County.

There also is potential for thunderstorms around the fire Tuesday, Ruthford said. The fire created its own weather patterns in the past days, generating giant pyro cumulonimbus clouds on multiple occasions in the last week.

The fire has destroyed 47 structures, according to Cal Fire’s Tuesday morning incident report. It threatens over 10,700 more.

Numerous mandatory evacuation orders remain in place, including the communities of Meadow Valley, Bucks Lake, Prattville, Big Meadows and Lake Almanor West in Plumas County; Butte Meadows, Jonesville, Philbrook and High Lakes in Butte County; and the area of Colby Creek in Tehama County.

Detailed information on evacuation zones spanned seven pages of Cal Fire’s incident report. Many roads are closed, including stretches of Highways 36, 70 and 89.

Officially, the fire’s cause remains under investigation by Cal Fire. But Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in a July 18 filing to state regulators said its equipment may have started the fire.

Cal Fire is battling the Dixie Fire in unified command with Lassen National Forest.

Tamarack Fire

Firefighters appear to have turned the tide on the Tamarack Fire, pushing containment up to 54% and keeping expansion minimal through Monday. The Tamarack Fire is burning in Alpine County and Douglas County, Nevada.

Rainfall helped crews increase containment by 11 percentage points from Monday to Tuesday morning. The fire received heavy rain and thunder at some points Monday, and a “steady rainfall covered the entire fire area” through the night, U.S. Forest Service officials said in a Tuesday morning update.

The Tamarack Fire has charred 68,103 acres as of Tuesday morning.

The Alpine County Sheriff’s Office lifted a number of mandatory evacuation orders through the weekend and into Monday, the most recent being for Blue Lakes Road and the Blue Lakes campground areas. Mandatory evacuation orders remain in effect for the Highway 4 corridor between Highway 89 and Ebbetts Pass.

An interactive map from the Alpine County Sheriff’s Office shows that at least 15 buildings were destroyed within the county. Estimates for Douglas County have not yet been released.

The wildfire ignited by lightning in early July in the Mokelumne Wilderness area and began to grow explosively in mid-July amid heavy winds. The U.S. Forest Service has since faced criticism for originally leaving the small fire to burn itself out.

Other California wildfires

▪ The Beckwourth Complex, which previously held the title of California’s largest wildfire so far this year, has remained stagnant for the last week.

The fire complex is now 98% contained and officials lifted all evacuation orders and warnings.

The larger of the two fires within the incident, the Sugar Fire, flared and destroyed several homes in the town of Doyle in mid-July. The fire ultimately burned over 105,000 acres.

Like the Tamarack Fire, lightning started the Beckwourth Complex in early July.

▪ The Lava Fire, which raged in Shasta-Trinity National Forest in late June and early July, has remained at 77% containment for nearly two weeks. The fire is burning in the rugged terrain near Mount Shasta, making it difficult for firefighters to access the fire to mop up.

Despite the stagnant containment, the fire has expanded minimally over the past two weeks. The only minor expansion occurred in wilderness areas near Mount Shasta.

The fire flared at the beginning of the month, forcing evacuations for thousands of Siskiyou County residents. The fire also burned through thousands of acres of marijuana farms run by the local Hmong population.

This story was originally published July 27, 2021 at 9:00 AM.