Residents of the towns of Weed, Lake Shastina and Edgewood in Siskiyou County were told to evacuate after the fire in hot, windy conditions spread to 500 acres in about an hour, the Siskiyou Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Photos posted on social media showed huge flames in the town of Weed, about 70 miles north of Redding. Christopher Rock, an employee at the Mayten Store in Montague, a town 30 miles north of Weed, said fire evacuees had overwhelmed the pumps. “It’s very busy right now,” he said. “You can’t see the flames from here, just a lot of smoke.” Marco Noriega, brewer at Mount Shasta Brewing Company, said they received the evacuation notice about an hour ago and sent the 10 customers and three employees away. He said the power is out and they have received little information. Smoke is in the north and winds blow from the south, keeping the fire away. He sounded calm as he cleaned up. “I’ve been through it before, as long as the wind stays the way it is, I’m fine. But I know the air is changing fast,” he said by phone. The National Weather Service has issued a severe weather warning for Siskiyou County from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. today. Winds were expected to reach up to 31 mph in the Weed area, the weather service said. In Southern California, firefighters are making progress today against two major wildfires despite dangerous heat. Containment of the fire along Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles increased to 37 percent and remained just over 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) in size, according to a statement from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Firefighters were focusing on clearing hotspots and building more containment lines, trying to get most of the hard work done before the midday heat, Cal Fire said. California is in the grip of a prolonged heatwave. Temperatures were so high that residents were asked for three days in a row to conserve energy in the late afternoon and evening hours, when solar power declines. On Wednesday, seven firefighters working the Route Fire in triple-digit temperatures had to be taken to hospitals for treatment of heat illnesses. All were released. “Extreme heat, low humidity and steep terrain will continue to be the biggest challenge for firefighters,” Cal Fire said. The tally of damaged structures remained at two and all evacuation orders were lifted. In eastern San Diego County, the Border 32 Fire remained at 7 square miles (18 square kilometers) and containment was increased to 20 percent. More than 1,500 people had to evacuate the area near the US-Mexico border when the fire broke out on Wednesday. All evacuations have been lifted by this afternoon. Two people were hospitalized with burns. Three houses and seven other buildings were destroyed. Scientists say climate change has made the West hotter and drier over the past three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
