.Crews are making progress in their battle against two vegetation fires in Lake County. The Ham Fire started Wednesday afternoon in Nice. Crews got the fire contained in about two hours after it burned one acre of land. Evacuation orders were then downgraded to warnings. The other fire, the Scotts Fire, started about an hour before the Ham Fire. It has burned 38 acres of land in a rural area northwest of Lakeport. The fire is 15% contained and has not damaged any homes. Forward progress has been stopped. An evacuation order for NIC-E047 has been lifted.
It looks like California’s summer wave of COVID is starting early this year. Emergency room visits are up nearly 9% and the rate of those testing positive is up 6%, three times the level since last month. Health officials warn those who’ve already recovered from the virus may be reinfected as new variants spread. The state is one of six showing high levels of COVID in the wastewater.
As wildfires rage across the state, the risk of even more is around 100%. That word is from Cal Fire. The agency says it’s already seen more acres burned in their Northern California unit this week than in the last three years combined. Their crews are working a fire in Colusa County which has now become the biggest here, topping 19-thousand acres. Flames are threatening 326 structures as evacuation orders and warnings remain in place.
All residents who were ordered to evacuate due to the Point Fire are now allowed to return to their homes. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office lifted all evacuation orders at five o’clock Wednesday afternoon. People who live in the area of the fire, northwest of Healdsburg and on the east and south of Lake Sonoma, are urged to return home with caution. Three-hundred-twenty-eight residents were ordered to evacuate when the fire started on Sunday afternoon and about 400 more faced evacuation warnings.
Firefighters are getting closer to fully containing Sonoma County’s first major wildfire of the season. The Point Fire is now 60% contained after four days. Crews are still doing mop-up work and reinforcing containment lines. The fire has burned one-thousand-207 acres of land, destroyed three structures, and damaged two others. A firefighter also suffered a minor injury.
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After a busy week, Cal Fire is warning of a possible rough fire season ahead. So far this year, there have been 2,156 wildfires statewide. They have burned nearly 90-thousand acres of land and destroyed 22 structures. As of Wednesday, there are 14 active wildfires in California. The largest is the Sites Fire, which has burned more than 19-thousand acres of land in Colusa County and is 10% contained.
The Sonoma-Marin Fair at the Petaluma Fairgrounds begins today. The fair, which runs through Sunday, will have $13 to $22 tickets with ten-dollar parking. The popular World’s Ugliest Dog Contest happens tomorrow at six p.m., on the Kiwanis Stage. Eight dogs are entered in this year’s contest. The winning dog and owner get a trophy and $1,500 in cash. The contest has been a Fair tradition for nearly 50 years.
