Black Butte is barely visible from my front yard on a smoky Monday morning.
Today is day 5 since the Carr Fire really blew up and sent a firestorm down into Redding. The fire started actually started a week ago but no one foresaw the way the conflagration would erupt and slow into populated areas like it did. Fortunately, the lines established in Redding have held for the three days and the fire’s eastward advance has been halted. Even better, it seems to have been halted in the south around Igo and also the growth has been significantly slowed at Buckhorn Summit, though it looks like the flames will probably reach the shore of Trinity Lake. The fire is now at 17% containment and growing. I think the corner has been turned. Unless something changes and things get worse again, this is my last collection of maps that I am going to post. I am heading to Texas in a couple of days anyway, so I am going to be offline for a while. Let us pray we are nearing the end of this fire. Then the rebuilding starts. I hope some lessons can be learned from the aftermath down in Sonoma County. I have a lot of thoughts on that.
As noted, the growth of the fire has slowed significantly. Rather than doubling in size each day from Wednesday to Saturday, it only grew around 6% on Sunday and containment has been increasing. The real hotspots now are at Buckhorn Summit and in the north, approaching Trinity Lake. The real effort now is to keep the fire out of Trinity County. Here is how things look as off 7:00 AM this morning:
There are still some hotspots on the south and east but it looks like the danger is past for Redding and the surrounding communities. There is even mention of evacuees returning home soon.
For what it is worth, here is a comparison of the fire’s position from about 8:30 last night with this morning:
Also, I think the map below is really helpful in seeing the progression of the fire. It is only current up to about Sunday morning, but it shows the major evolutions of the fire:
Sadly, Whiskeytown Lake looks like is in the center of a fire donut. Cue Johnny Cash. It is evident that nearly 100% of the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area burned. That is a lot of visitor center, marina, campgrounds, trails, etc. that are lost. I was even wondering if there is an archived version of the audio of JFK’s speech that he gave at the opening of the park. It was used as part of one of the displays and I am guessing it burned. Hopefully it can be replaced. It will be interesting to see how the National Park Service responds to this disaster.