Northern California wildfire slows, some evacuations lifted

“It’s pretty far away from the Napa Valley”, Head said, adding that people are “fine to go into the Napa Valley and do tastings”. When the Wragg Fire broke out, flames consumed 500 acres in the first hour.

The most active part of the fire was burning along a mountain range in a remote area several miles from the highway that feeds into the lake park.

Investigators are asking the public for information about a vehicle of interest that was in the area at the start of the fire. The Lake Solano campground is now closed for fire equipment, officials noted.

A fire burned over a 100 acres at the Kyburz fire off Highway 50 on Thursday, July 23, 2015, in El Dorado National Forest. It was in a rugged creek drainage area that fire engines couldn’t reach so crews were hiking or being dropped by helicopter, state fire spokeswoman Lynne Tolmachoff said.

“Many of the people live off the grid, they want to be left alone, and they have trees all over the place” which makes it harder to protect them from fire, Berlant said. Fire team leaders are concerned about the rest of the fire season because landscape is parched from the ongoing drought.

“The concern is when [we] restart the system, we’re required to do bacterial sampling, and that’s a 48-hour test. And so we’re doing that right now and we should have the results tomorrow morning”, said Cary Keaten, the district’s general manger.

In the meantime, mandatory evacuations in the Golden Bear Estates Area in Yolo County and on County Road 87 were lifted on Thursday evening. Evacuations were also called for the Cascade Shores community.

Meanwhile, firefighters gained ground against a wildfire near Napa Valley wine country, and on Sunday that fire was 65 percent contained.

Only one outbuilding and a tent structure have been destroyed since the fire began Wednesday, but 150 structures remained threatened Friday, authorities said. Residents who were told to evacuate from around fifty homes when the fire started on Wednesday were allowed to return to their homes on Friday. It was contained up to 75 % by Saturday.