Wildfire forces hundreds to evacuate in Lake County

Dale Carnathan, the director of emergency services at the Lake County Sheriff's Office, said Sunday that up to 15 structures would have been damaged or destroyed, but the exact number has not yet been confirmed. Some 600 structures were threatened by fire. No injuries have been reported, said Carnathan.

Mandatory evacuations were issued for all residents, said Carnathan, but some people chose to stay in their homes.

Mike Smith, 38, of Clearlake, runs a Facebook page called Lake County Community Awareness Ca. When the fire broke out, he went to the scene and started taking videos for the page so to keep residents informed.

Smith said that he is a veteran when it comes to dealing with forest fires in Lake County and offering his truck for supplies or his video skills to inform as he did it during the 2015 Valley Fire and 2016 Clayton Fire.

"We have gone through a lot of things here," he said.

This time, he said, residents were more willing to pack their bags and leave. "People realized that it was not worth staying," Smith said.

The Pawnee Fire seemed to be raising its own wind, fueling hell, but the crews were taking an aggressive approach to fighting it, he added.

Further north in Tehama County, Stoll Fire (which burned at least 500 acres) and Lane Fire (3,000 acres) caught fire on Saturday and caused evacuations. Sunday morning, the Stoll fire was confined to 40% after the destruction of several houses and buildings. The lane fire was contained at 5% and no structure was destroyed. No injuries were reported in one or the other incident. As with other fires, the cases were under investigation.

In eastern Contra Costa County, a fire broke out on Saturday near Antioch, burning six structures and 10 acres and sending two residents to the hospital, said fire officials. The fire was contained early Sunday.

The fire, which erupted around 5:15 pm Saturday, burns property at Deer Hill Lane and Deer Valley Road, about a mile south of the Kaiser Antioch Medical Building.

Seventy-five firefighters managed to prevent the advance of the Antioch fire around 7:30 pm, said Lisa Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District. A man and a woman suffering from smoke inhalation were transported to the hospital.

In early Sunday, Martinez said the fire crews were still working on the site, extinguishing hot spots. At least two houses were destroyed, and four more were damaged, she said. An unknown number of dependencies have also burned.

The flames were hard to contain on Saturday because there was no underground water system or fire hydrant, Martinez said. Calls for water were rolling in thousands of gallons of water to power the engines, she said.

Martinez said the fire-fighting resources were scattered. The agency has called on the help of Cal Fire and Fire Protection District of East Contra Costa.

The flames ignited as forecasters warned of dangerous fire conditions due to high temperatures, high winds and low humidity. Red flag warnings have been issued all weekend for the East Bay Hills and higher elevations in Sonoma and Napa counties, among many other places in Northern California.