The blaze, dubbed the Mill Fire, started on or near the property of Roseburg Forest Products, a wood veneer manufacturing plant. It quickly burned through homes, propelled by 56 km/h winds, and by evening had swallowed 4 square miles (10.3 square kilometers) of land. Annie Peterson said she was sitting on the porch of her home near the Roseburg facility when “all of a sudden we heard a big bang and all this smoke was just rolling toward us.” Very quickly her house and about a dozen others caught fire. She said members of her congregation helped evacuate her and her son, who is immobile. He said the scene of smoke and flames looked like “the world was coming to an end”. Many places in the area were also without power. About 9,000 customers, many in Weed, were affected by power outages just before 1 p.m., according to power company PacifiCorp, which it said was due to the fire. Cal Fire spokeswoman Susie Brady said several people were injured. Allison Hendrickson, a spokeswoman for Dignity Health North State Hospitals, said two people were taken to Mercy Medical Center Mount Shasta. One was in stable condition and the other was taken to UC Davis Medical Center, which has a burn unit. Meanwhile, a second fire that broke out a few miles north of the Mill Fire near the community of Gazelle had burned 600 acres (243 hectares) and prompted some evacuations. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Siskyou County and said he received a federal grant “to ensure the availability of vital resources to fight the fire.” California is in the grip of a prolonged drought and now a brutal heat wave that is taking a toll on the power grid as people try to stay cool. Residents were asked for three consecutive days to save energy in the late afternoon and evening, when energy consumption is highest. 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. Over the past five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive wildfires in the state’s history. Southern California had two major wildfires earlier in the week. The last evacuation orders for them were lifted around the time the Mill Fire started at noon Friday. The flames spread quickly and about 7,500 people received evacuation orders covering the small town of Weed and surrounding areas, located about 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of San Francisco. Dr. Deborah Heiger, medical director at Shasta View Nursing Center, said all 23 patients at the facility were evacuated, with 20 going to local hospitals and three staying at her home, where hospital beds had been set up. Olga Hood heard about the fire on her scanner and stepped onto the front porch of her Weed home to see smoke billowing over the adjacent hill. With the infamous gusts tearing through the town at the base of Mount Shasta, he wasn’t expecting an evacuation order. She packed her papers, medicine and more, said her granddaughter, Cynthia Jones. “With the wind in Weed everything like that moves fast. It’s bad,” Jones said by phone from her home in Medford, Oregon. “It’s not unusual to get gusts of 50 to 60 mph on a normal day. I was thrown into a creek as a child.” Hood’s nearly three-decade-old home escaped a fire last year and the devastating Boles Fire that tore through the town eight years ago, destroying more than 160 buildings, mostly homes. Hood cried as she discussed the fire from a relative’s home in Granada Township, Jones said. She was unable to gather photos that were important to her late husband. Willo Balfrey, 82, an artist from Lake Shastina, said she was painting Friday afternoon when her grandson, who is a member of the California Highway Patrol, called her to warn her about the fast-spreading flames. He said, “don’t delay, grab your computer, grab whatever you need and leave the house now. It’s coming your way.’ So I did,” Balfrey said. She grabbed a suitcase full of important documents as well as water and her computer, iPhone and chargers and headed out the door. “I’ve come to the philosophy that if I have all my papers, what’s in the house isn’t that important,” he said. She stopped to pick up her neighbor and they drove to a church parking lot in Montague, where about 40 other vehicles were parked. Rebecca Taylor, director of communications for Springfield, Ore.-based Roseburg Forest Products, said it was unclear whether the fire started near or on company property. A large empty building on the edge of the company’s property burned, he said. All workers were evacuated and no one has reported injuries, he said. The plant employs 145 people, although not all were on shift at the time, Taylor said. “We are devastated to see this fire affect the community in this way,” he said. In Southern California, firefighters are making progress Friday against two large wildfires. Containment of the fire along Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles increased to 56 percent and remained at just over 8 square miles (21 square kilometers), Cal Fire said in a statement. On Wednesday, seven firefighters working in triple-digit temperatures had to be taken to hospitals for treatment of heat illnesses. All were released. In eastern San Diego County, the Border 32 Fire remained at 7 square miles (18 square kilometers) and containment increased to 65 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 were lifted by Friday afternoon. Two people were hospitalized with burns. Three houses and seven other buildings were destroyed.
Rodriguez reported from San Francisco, where Associated Press reporter Janie Harr contributed. AP reporters Stefanie Dazio and Brian Melley in Los Angeles also contributed.
