Dixie Fire forces closure of Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California

Lassen Volcanic National Park shut down Thursday as the Dixie Fire continued to ravage multiple Northern California counties.

“The Dixie Fire is currently ... active on the east side of the park,” according to a post on the park’s website. “The entire park is closed to all uses to allow for firefighter access.”

Kevin Sweeney, a park ranger at Lassen, said it wasn’t immediately clear how many visitors were in the park when the closure was announced. “Rangers are currently sweeping the park,” he said.

He added that normally the park would have as many as 4,000 visitors on a weekday in early August, but crowds had been thinned out by the smoke from the Dixie Fire. “This is kind of the height of our busy season.”

He said the fire was actively burning through “extremely dry fuels .... This fire behavior is like nothing we’ve ever seen in the park.”

There was no immediate word when the park would reopen.

The park is located near Mineral, Tehama County, near the northwest corner of the fire’s burn zone.

The shutdown came a day after the three-week-old fire roared through the tiny Plumas County community of Greenville, leveling most of its Gold Rush-era downtown.

The fire has prompted evacuations in four counties, including Tehama, Plumas, Butte and Lassen.

This story was originally published August 5, 2021 at 11:13 AM.