Around 12:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon, the Meadow Fire took off in a remote area of the hills east of Anderson Valley described as near the intersection of Oak Ridge Road and Lone Tree Ridge Road.
The fire burned quickly moving from grass into nearby timber in the hot afternoon temperatures growing to 16.54 acres in size.
A CAL FIRE Incident Update published this morning indicates efforts by firefighters thus far have brought the Meadow Fire’s containment to 65%.
Today, 92 firefighters are assigned to the Meadow Fire working to improve containment lines, patrol the fire area, and suppress any hotspots or hazard trees.
Two structures burned in the fire, but there is nothing to indicate at this point that those structures are related to the start of the blaze. The cause of the blaze is under investigation, as per CAL FIRE’s Incident Update.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office posted two photographs on their social media of what appears to be burning greenhouses. We do not have confirmation if those are the “destroyed structures”, but from how they appear in the photographs, they are destroyed.
Initial visual on the fire from Alert Wildfire Cameras showed a dark, almost black column rising from the hillside with many in the community suggesting the fire’s initial start could have been some sort of structure that then spread into the wildland. Once, again there has been no confirmation of this.
Agencies that converged on the Meadow Fire include CAL FIRE, the Anderson Valley Fire Department, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the California National Guard, and the California Conservation Corps.
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Editor’s Note
As always, we want to use our platform to celebrate and recognize Mendocino County local fire agencies that are the backbone of our area’s emergency response. The Anderson Valley Volunteer Fire Department responds inland to Hopland and the Ukiah Valley all the way to the coast. Please, consider donating to them. The work they do on a shoe-string budget is incredible. Just imagine what they could do with appropriate funding.