Scanner traffic starting at approximately 6:55 p.m. indicated there is an active fire burning on Willits’s Quarry Road. Firefighters and Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office deputies are en route to a location on Quarry Road via Cropley Lane where there are “two RVs and a vehicle fully involved” with possible spread into wildland.
The incident commander said the fire is currently two acres with a fully involved vehicle and one structure threatened.
Though still under investigation by Cal Fire, the property owner on scene told us an encampment has been developing in the location for a significant amount of time and surmised the fire started in the encampment.
“We do not take this decision lightly but this is the best choice for public safety,” said Regional Forester Jennifer Eberlien. “It is especially hard with the approaching Labor Day weekend, when so many people enjoy our national forests.”
Captain O’Neal told us that the “two fires were started using either a lighter or matches and vegetation from the park” and there was no evidence of combustible liquids identified.
The Incident Commander described the fire as approximately 1/4 acre in size and burning on both sides of the Road. The Incident Commander said the forward progress had been stopped and another fire has flared up in the area that crews were working to tamp down.
Comptche Fire and Cal Fire were initially dispatched but support units were cancelled when the Incident Commander found the fire was contained to the bus with no extension into wildland.
About 11:19 p.m., the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department warned residents in a Nixle Alert, “Fire Personnel are responding to the 18300 block of Scenic Drive in Redwood Valley for reported fire in the area. Please avoid the area at this time. Updates to follow as they become available.” […]
At approximately 9:38 p.m. scanner traffic and the California Highway Patrol Traffic Incident Information Page indicated a fire was reportedly burning near a campground along Highway 101 on the Mendocino/Sonoma county line. Scanner traffic indicates the fire is currently three acres, burning at a slow rate-of-spread with a […]
The Incident Commander one of the fires is 15’x15′ burning in a group of redwood trees near the parking lot while the other fire is 50’x50′ and “considerably further in the park” burning at a slow rate of spread.
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