Residents have been allowed to return to their homes after a 7-square-mile wildfire prompted the evacuation of about two dozen homes in central Washington.
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The 13-day-old conflagration near Big Sur is one of almost 30 major wildfires reported to have scorched roughly 700 square miles (1,813 sq km) in 12 states, mostly in the West, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
The Rail fire has grown from an estimated 700 acres on Monday to 2,043 acres on Tuesday, according to the Incident Information System.
No injuries reports, no buildings lost yet, sheriff’s office said.
Evacuation orders have been given to communities in Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and OR while fire fighting crews are struggling to control a blaze in Washington headed for a security area at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. But the annual number of large wildfires in the American West has increased by more than 75 percent, from roughly 140 fires in the 1980s to 250 fires in the 2000s, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported in 2014.
The blaze has charred more than 6 square miles along the border of Napa and Yolo counties since igniting Tuesday.
The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise said the C-130s will go into action on Wednesday and initially be based in Boise.
Residents of about 630 homes southwest of Hamilton were under evacuation orders Tuesday.
No new injuries were reported among the more than 1,100 firefighters working to contain the two fires, and neither fire was threatening structures.
With the fire now largely hemmed in on its northern flank, closest to communities that were threatened, the blaze is moving primarily in a southeasterly direction deeper into the Los Padres National Forest, Scott said.
In Bridger-Teton National Forest, a fire that has burned about 46 square miles was 84 percent contained.
Firefighters have gained 50 percent containment of the fire that has burned about 22 square miles on private land and in Shoshone National Forest.
Meanwhile to our north, on the eastern side of Lake Berryessa near Winters, a grass fire broke out Tuesday afternoon around 4:30 that has now become a 4,000-acre wildfire, called the Cold Fire.
About 800 firefighters were battling a series of fires that had threatened a tribal town and hamlets near Pyramid Lake, north of Reno. High temperatures and low humidity fuelled the blaze and closed a section of State Highway 21 located in between Idaho City and Lowman.
Efforts to quell the Soberanes fire have been complicated by steep, rugged terrain and persistently hot, dry weather, said Erik Scott, a spokesman for the fire command.
Members of the CAL Fire Vina Helitack crew battle a spot fire as the fast-moving wildfire called “Sand Fire” burns near Plymouth, California July 26, 2014.
The $60,000 yurt that burned is a round, tent-like structure with a dome roof and plastic skin.
Officials predicted humidity in the single-digits in the Virginia Mountains with wind gusts up to 45 miles per hour.
Just north of Los Angeles, a 65-square-mile wildfire in wilderness just north of Los Angeles was nearly fully contained and only active with isolated pockets of vegetation burning within a fire lines.
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As the Chronicle notes, the Golden Bear Estates neighborhood has been evacuated in the last two fire seasons, once in 2015 during the Wragg Fire, and in 2014 during the Monticello Fire.
