Blaze jumps containment line; more homes on fire

Residents watch as a wildfire burns near their homes off Morgan Valley Road in Lower Lake, Calif., Saturday Aug. 13, 2016.

Lower Lake was evacuated in a devastating wildfire a year ago.

Homes in the area remain threatened and an evacuation center was set up in Clearlake. More evacuation orders have been issued as the wildfire grows in Northern Ca.

State Sen. Mike McGuire, whose district includes the fire-ravaged Lake County, was on his way to Lower Lake Sunday morning to check out the burn zone with the sheriff’s department.

Authorities ordered about 1,200 residents to leave 500 homes as the blaze surged east of the town of Lower Lake.

Staff at a hospital in Clearlake, a neighboring town of about 15,000, rushed to transfer 16 patients to another hospital 25 miles away while firefighters carried goats and other animals to safety as homes burned around them.

As many as 675 fire officials have been assigned to battle the blaze, with 18 water tenders, 21 bulldozers and four helicopters being among the equipment being used. Ironically, the Habitat for Humanity office was working to raise money to help rebuild homes destroyed by a devastating wildfire almost a year ago. Mike McGuire about last year’s wildfire. Large, explosive fires have torn through dried-out or hard-to-reach areas across California this summer, including a stubborn blaze near the picturesque Big Sur coastline that has burned 113 square miles since late July and destroyed almost 60 homes.

This summer, Lake County, like many parts of California, has seen several small wildfires as the state wrestles with a fifth year of drought and a dangerously parched landscape.

The blaze, named the Clayton Fire, was only miles from where the 76,000-acre Valley Fire killed four people and burned more than 1,300 homes in September.

The wildfire burning in Lake County more than doubled in size overnight to 1,400 acres, forcing evacuations and destroying at least four homes, fire officials said Sunday.

A report issued this week concluded that the fire was ignited by faulting wiring in a hot tub.

Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant says fire crews are working in hot temperatures and no cloud clover to fight the blaze in Lake County.

Another wildfire that broke out Saturday afternoon forced the evacuation of 135 homes south of Lake Nacimiento in central California, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s office said.

The fast-moving blaze, which was reported as 10 percent contained Saturday night, is back down to just 5 percent containment Sunday because of the spread, and the weather in Lake County isn’t helping – Sunday’s high was forecast to be 93 degrees in Lower Lake, with winds about 10 miles per hour, according to AccuWeather.

Some Lake County residents are being forced to evacuate for the second time in a week – either from the Canyon fire, which burned 14 acres, or the Kugelman fire, which burned 45 south of Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.