Lightning strikes occurred near the Humboldt county/Trinity county line Monday night, and as residents in the area woke up Tuesday, smoke was in the air. what has been dubbed “the hill fire” is burning in eastern Humboldt in the Six Rivers National Forest.
The Six Rivers National Forest spans almost 1 million acres from the Oregon California border south to Mendocino,” Adrianne Rubiaco of the Six Rivers National Forest told Redwood News. “We did experience some critical fire weather and that included lightning. The Six Rivers National Forest received at least 50-52 strikes of lightning across the forest.”
Reports of a fire started coming in Monday night, shortly after the lightning strikes. four fires were reported in the area, the hill fire being one of them.
“All four fires occurred on the same district, the Lower Trinity Ranger District, which is based out of Willow Creek. And so those fires were all, you know, towards the northeast, all the way to the east and then south of Willow Creek,” said Rubiaco. “Three of the four fires are all holding to their current fire perimeters. So less than a quarter acre, which is good news for those fires. The Hill fire, however, is not holding too well,” she continued.
“The hill fire is the priority fire at this time. It is experiencing rapid growth and very active fire behavior, especially given the very dry conditions with high heat and low humidity.”
The fire is burning along forest service road 5N04 between Spike Buck Creek and Packeka Creek and Mosquito Creek, just east of Spike Buck Mountain. The fire is approximately 10 miles south of Willow Creek, 15 miles northwest of Hyampom and 30 miles east of Kneeland.
“Firefighters responding to these fires that include our own Six Rivers National Forest fire resources,” Rubiaco stated, “but also from outside our forest in the state. And we also our partners over at cal fire are assisting us and, you know, local volunteer fire departments as well. And so on the hill fire, we have several ground support, which is engines, hand crews, dozers, those types of resources. but we also have a great presence of air resources as well. So that includes air attack helicopters and they’re performing retardant drops on the fire as well.”
The forest service has ordered a type three incident management team which includes multiple agencies and jurisdictions. Check humboldtgov.org to sign up for Office of Emergency Services updates.
