Red Flag Warning Winds Add To Firefighters Woes; Renewed Threat To Vital California Power Lines – CBS San Francisco

CHILOKIN, Ore. (CBS SF / AP) – As the tired army of more than 2,100 firefighters fighting the Bootleg fire needed no other call from Mother Nature, the National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning for the burned area for the afternoon. Saturday with wind speeds of 30 mf per second and humidity levels expected to be one figure.

The warning will start at 2 pm and will last at least until 8 pm. There is also a threat of thunderstorms in Dushanbe.

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“We expect westerly winds of 15 to 20 miles per mile with gusts of up to 30 miles per hour and half-air humidity in a number of low-lying areas affecting fires and the surrounding area,” meteorologists said.

“In addition to strong winds and low humidity, the Bootleg fire on Sunday, when the Hines Index (used to measure the value of temperature and frost point) near the maximum, is very unstable and dry conditions are possible, which shows , which is favorable for fire, ”the weather service continued.” Given that we have seen the king’s specific behavior over the past few days in the Bootleg fire, the weather conditions will definitely support such extreme behavior on Sunday. “

At a briefing Saturday morning, Chief of Operations Kyle Cannon said the Bootleg and Logg Firg fires were getting closer in the northeast corner of the fire.

“We saw some increase last night in both the Logg fire and the main fire, and those fires are coming together,” he said.

Unfortunately, both fires are heading for Route 66 – a vital power line corridor that connects the California grid to power generators in the northwest. The corridor is located in the middle where the fires are coming together.

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Firefighters have struggled with the irregular behavior of the fire since it exploded last week.

The crews were forced to flee the line of fire late Thursday after a dangerous “cloud of fire” collapsed, threatening them with heavy loads and flying firefighters. An initial inspection on Friday showed the Bootleg fire destroyed 67 homes and 117 residential buildings in one county overnight. Authorities were still calculating casualties in a second county where the blaze was rising to 4 miles a day.

Fire spokeswoman Holly Crack said the blaze forced 2,000 people to evacuate and threatened 5,000 buildings, including smaller homes and buildings in a rural area north of the California border. He said the active flames were rising at a distance of 200 miles around the fire and were expected to be joined by a smaller but equally explosive fire by evening.

Bootleg Fire is now on 281,208 acres – larger than New York City’s area – and only 22 percent of it is available.

“We are likely to continue to increase the fire over miles and miles of active fire line,” Krake said. “We will continue to add thousands of acres of land per day, and it will be possible every day to wait for the weekend to continue these 3-4-mile distances.”

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The fire was mostly active on its northeastern edge, and winds from the south pushed it toward the rural communities of Summer Lake and Spring Lake. Paisley, east of the fire, was also in danger. All cities are located in Lake County, a remote area of ​​lakes and wildlife sanctuaries, with a total population of about 8,000 people.