WEED, Calif. — Fueled by gusty winds and sweltering temperatures, the fast-moving Mill Fire provided an ominous beginning to a brutally hot Labor Day weekend in Northern California, as it tore through Siskiyou County neighborhoods, claiming dozens of homes, causing multiple injuries, and sending thousands of residents fleeing for their lives.
The disastrous inferno — suspected of starting around a local wood-manufacturing plant in Weed on Friday — jumped to 3,921 acres with just 20% containment by Saturday, puncturing a relatively quiet wildfire season with some of the year’s most frightening conflagrations.
By Saturday afternoon, the immediate threat appeared to have subsided somewhat as some evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings and nearly 4,000 firefighters walled off the fast-moving blaze from wreaking further destruction.
But weather conditions for the remainder of this weekend in Siskiyou County will not be forgiving, with projected highs Sunday of 92 degrees with gusty winds set to climb to 20 miles per hour. And conditions across the region may only continue to worsen, with the heat wave predicted to peak Monday and Tuesday and linger through the end of the week.
“Simply put, it’s going to be elevated fire weather conditions across a good portion of Northern California, given the hot and dry conditions,” said Matt Mehle, a National Weather Service meteorologist. “The bigger contributor to fire, and fire spread, is the wind. Those wind speeds could make a difference.”
Just a few miles to the north of Weed, a second blaze, the Mountain Fire, had burned to nearly 3,400 acres since Friday in the small community of Gazelle and prompted hundreds of additional evacuations.
At least two people were injured in the Mill Fire and transported to medical centers for treatment.
On Saturday, dozens of homes, flattened to rubble by the intensity of the flames, lay smoldering under a thick haze of smoke on either side of Highway 97 north of Weed’s downtown.
Abandoned cars and pickup trucks remained scattered around, sitting on bare rims with their tires burned away — a sign of just how quickly wildfires can become destructive in torrid, windy conditions, which were expected to continue into Sunday.
“I lost my house, my dogs, everything but what I’ve got on,” said Dave Rodgers, 59, who had been about to take a shower Friday when he saw smoke through his bathroom window.
Rodgers had been on his porch when he noticed the lumber mill a quarter mile to the south was on fire. The flames were making their way over the hill, with sparks and ash descending upon his neighborhood of Lincoln Heights, a historically Black enclave: “It happened all at once,” he said.
A retired Weed city worker and lifelong resident, he drove toward the fire when he saw it coming, making sure an elderly neighbor who lived up the hill was evacuating and alerting another, a woman in her 80s, to get ready to go.
He then scrambled home to pick up his adopted chihuahuas, TT and Xena, but the fire kicked up as he arrived and clouded his vision, preventing him from getting through the gate.
By the time he had returned to the hill, his neighbor’s garage and deck were already ablaze. And as they fled the neighborhood, “flames came over the truck, and she started screaming.” The pair made it out alive.
A state emergency official said Saturday that at least 50 structures were destroyed in the fire, with the number expected to rise. The Mill and Mountain Fires are the most recent of an estimated 80 wildfires now burning throughout California, and fire season is just heading into what is traditionally its most dangerous weeks.
“We know that fire in the town of Weed has caused civilian injuries and power outages, impacted critical infrastructure, destroyed homes and, of course, has had results of thousands of folks evacuated,” Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said in a press conference Saturday.
The blaze also closed a number of local roads and parts of U.S. Highway 97, which stretches from Weed north through Washington.
Cal Fire is investigating the cause of the Mill Fire, but multiple Weed residents said it appeared to have begun at or near a lumber mill owned by a large wood-manufacturing company, Roseburg Forest Products, right near the city’s fire department and a cluster of residences, as well as a local elementary school.
The fire also burned into the community of Lake Shastina north of Weed, with the local fire department chief, Steven Pappas, saying Saturday in a statement that the blaze had leveled numerous homes.
“Today is a very sad day for our community, Pappas said. “Many people are wondering when they will be able to return to an evacuated area. We do not have a specific answer for this but I would plan for at a minimum several days. The entire community is still without power so please plan accordingly.”
Despite the Mill Fire’s rapid spread, fire crews prevented the flames from reaching the southern part of Weed, which is home to a number of downtown businesses.
On Saturday morning, Rachel Thomas was driving around the edge of her neighborhood in Weed — surrounded by police tape — hoping to spot her dogs Chopper and Anika, who had been in the house when the fire struck.
She and her 15-year-old son, Keeshan Barton, lost virtually all their belongings when the flames destroyed their rented home of 14 years in Lincoln Heights. Thomas, 42, held onto hope that firefighters had gotten to the home before it burned and opened a door, and “maybe the dogs could’ve gotten out,” she said.
She’s lived in Weed for 20 years, she said, and now will be looking for a new home in the area — as will many others whose homes were burned. But housing, she said, “was already scarce.”
As residents fled, Attorney General Rob Bonta warned businesses not to price-gouge those escaping the area on emergency supplies like medical aid, food and gasoline.
Near Lincoln Heights, Yvette Hoy left with her husband on Friday to run some errands — no fire in sight — and returned 45 minutes later to find their property burning, the flames jumping her yard toward the back of the house.
The couple own hundreds of cattle and dozens of sheep, which escaped the fire along with their three horses. But they lost a tractor and a hay-baling machine, plus all the hay she’d spent the summer cutting to feed the cattle over the coming winter months.
Gone, too, is their house, and a lifetime of irreplaceable mementos.
“The chimney wasn’t even standing,” she said. “You leave home with the clothes on your back and that’s all you end up with — in 45 minutes. How does that happen? You see it on TV, but you never think it’s going to happen to you.”
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(Mercury News staff writer Eliyahu Kamisher contributed to this report.)
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