The fire that started Friday near a wood products factory quickly ripped through a neighborhood on the north end of Weed, but then swept the flames away from the town of about 2,600. Evacuees described thick smoke and chunks of ash raining down. Annie Peterson said she was sitting on the porch of her home near Roseburg Forest Products, which makes wood veneer, 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”. 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. 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 employees were evacuated and no one has reported injuries. The blaze, dubbed the Mill Fire, was fanned by 35 mph (56 km/h) winds and quickly engulfed four square miles (10.3 square kilometers) of land. Flames from the McKinney Fire consume trees along California Highway 96 in the Klamath National Forest, California [File: Noah Berger/AP] The flames raced through grass, brush and timber. About 7,500 people around Weed and several nearby communities were ordered to evacuate. 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. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Siskiyou County and said he received a federal grant “to ensure the availability of vital resources to fight the fire.” It was the third major fire in as many days in California, which has been in a prolonged drought and is now reeling under a heat wave that was expected to push temperatures above the 100 F (38 C) mark in many areas during the Labor Day. Thousands of people were also ordered to flee Wednesday from a wildfire in Castaic, north of Los Angeles, and a wildfire in eastern San Diego County near the Mexican border, where two people were badly burned and several homes were destroyed. Those flames were 56 percent and 65 percent contained, respectively, and all evacuations had been lifted. The heat taxed the state’s power grid as people tried to stay cool. For the fourth day, residents were asked to save electricity on Saturday during the late afternoon and evening hours. The Mill Fire was burning about an hour’s drive from the Oregon state line. The entire region has faced repeated devastating fires in recent years. The Mill fire was only about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of where the McKinney fire — the state’s deadliest of the year — broke out in late July. It killed four people and destroyed dozens of houses. A helicopter drops water while battling the Oak Fire in Mariposa County, California [File: Noah Berger/AP] Olga Hood left her home in Weed on Friday as smoke billowed 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. Hood’s nearly three-decade-old home escaped a fire last year and the devastating Boles fire that hit the town eight years ago, destroying more than 160 buildings, mostly homes. Scientists say climate change has made the western United States warmer 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.
