Aug. 6—After a few days of small growth, the nearly two-week-old Park Fire burned another 10,000 acres overnight Monday into Tuesday and has now burned 414,042 acres. However, containment remains at 34%.
Today, smoke will be visible across the Park Fire and from surrounding communities.
Yesterday, the fire was active in Mill Creek drainage, pushed up the north rim, and spotted to Tamarack Road in several places into the South Fork Antelope Creek drainage.
Tehama County Fire/Cal-Fire TGU Chief Monty Smith addressed the fire before the Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning.
"We had quite a bit of growth in the Mill Creek drainage. It came out on top of the rim. We have crews actively engaged in there this morning, pushing dozer line, laying hose, and working their way to the northeast," he said. "On the south side of the Mill Creek rim, the same thing came out onto the plateau. Crews are actively engaged this morning and just trying to continue to push it back into the drainage."
The active fire in the Mill and Antelope Creek drainages forced the Tehama County Sheriff's Office to issue new evacuation orders in Zones TEH-718, TEH-722, and TEH-724.
Tehama County Sheriff Dave Kain told the board that people who are still in those to leave because it puts law enforcement at risk. As the fire approaches, attempts to evacuate them become more dangerous.
Kain also said there had been no loss of reports of death or missing people in the entire incident. He also said there have been no looting reports, as of yet.
Cal Fire said that "critically" low fuel moistures, steep canyons, long drive times, and daily spot fires are causing firefighters trouble in suppressing the fire spread.
Park Fire Incident Commander Dusty Martin told the board that the weather conditions are similar to those when the fire started in Upper Bidwell Park in Chico on July 24.
"Yesterday afternoon, we had relative humidities as low as 8% down in the drainage, which is pretty remarkable when we're up in that high area," he said.
He added that crews have started the recovery phase in the valley areas and are starting to refix all the lines.
"Meanwhile, up on that northeast section, we had a very aggressive firefight yesterday, all through the night last night, and as of this morning, our air tankers are already getting up in the air," he said. We've got the helicopters going up in there to support the troops on the ground."
There are 6,588 firefighters on the fire, but Martin said in the upper north of the Mill Creek rim, there are nearly 1,500 firefighters in the area working that spot.
"We're going to do everything we can, but I have to be cautious about our weather today; for our incident, the meteorologist is going to be drier and hotter than we had yesterday," he said. This fire is very fuel-driven. With the fuels that are out there, along with the temperatures and extremely low RHS, we would expect to see the lower relative humidities at the Valley floor not that high up in the foothills, which is really hampering our containment today."
Cal Fire officials think the fire will continue challenging their crews until more favorable weather conditions arrive later this week when temperatures aren't forecast to drop below 100 until Saturday.
The fire has now burned 98,048 acres in the Lassen National Forest, while it has burned 361,105 acres in Tehama County. In Butte, the acreage remains at 52,937.
Crews and aircraft are working aggressively to slow and contain fire movement, using direct attack where safe.
Tuesday morning, TCSO announced that zones TEH-498-B, TEH-498-E, TEH-694-A, TEH-694-B, and TEH-732 have been downgraded to evacuation warnings. These changes may be viewed here.
Structure loss
Cal Fire said that it had finished its damage inspections. The teams found 212 destroyed buildings in Tehama County and five damaged buildings.
On Tuesday morning, Martin told the Supervisors that 128 of those were single-family residents, two commercial occupancies, and eight other minor structures that would be outbuilding sheds of that kind.
"But we did have a safe rate of 277 structures that they surveyed and looked at, which gives us about just shy of a 60% save rate on the structure," he said."So with as fast as this fire was moving in the initial stage, at 5,000 acres an hour, which equates to an eight square mile distance, to have a save rate of 60% is pretty astounding, and that goes to the hard work that the men and women were doing out there when this initially started."
In Butte, the fire destroyed 428 structures and damaged 47 others. However, firefighters found no damage to 882 structures within Butte County.
Originally Published: August 6, 2024 at 9:42 a.m.
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