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Re:Some mandatory evacuations continue as Gulch Fire grows to 450 acres - 2012/06/21 07:03
SOURCE: http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/local/breaking-news/x1408651300/Gulch-Fire-up-to-450-acres
Wednesday, Jun 20 2012 07:30 PM
Evacuation orders lifted but Gulch Fire still not contained
BY COURTENAY EDELHART Californian staff writer cedelhart@bakersfield.com
WOFFORD HEIGHTS —Despite a slow but steady parade of fire trucks and the smell of smoke still thick in the air, Jenny Dowd slept in Wednesday after having spent most of the previous night preparing her Wofford Heights home for the possibility of fire.
She lives with two dogs and two parrots on a hilltop home just outside Hungry Gulch near Isabella Lake. That’s one of two communities placed under a mandatory evacuation order after a wildfire broke out at about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday near the French Gulch Bridge on Highway 155. The other was Isabella Highlands.
Related Photos
By Casey Christie / The Californian
Reed Gilbraith, a Bureau of Land Management fire engineer, carries several hose packs near French Gulch as he and his crew were on hand the second day of the Gulch Fire near Lake Isabella. Gilbraith's fire crew is stationed in Bakersfield.
By Casey Christie / The Californian
Firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service Stanislaus Hotshots, near Sonora, hike into the Gulch Fire on Wednesday in the French Gulch area of Isabella Lake.
By Casey Christie / The Californian
The Stanislaus Hotshots with the U.S. Forest Service head into the Gulch Fire to cut line, Wednesday, near French Gulch.
By Casey Christie / The Californian
Forest Service firefighters with the Stanislaus Hotshots, near Sonora, listen during their briefing, Wednesday, while working on the Gulch Fire.
By Casey Christie / The Californian
Jenny Dowd, 62, was glad her dog Beau Shasti and birds were safe when she saw the Gulch Fire burning toward her home on Sawmill Road Tuesday evening. "We have one helluva fire department," she said Wednesday afternoon.
Dowd, 62, first smelled the Gulch Fire — as the blaze was named — Tuesday evening. At first she thought something was burning in her crock pot.
Then she heard planes and helicopters and looked out a window to find fire galloping through adjacent hills.
Dowd got out a hose and spent the next few hours watering her roof and the trees around her manicured yard. At one point she saw 20-foot flames coming over a ridge about a half-mile south of her home. Soon trees were exploding and branches flying.
That’s when she started to panic. Then the wind changed as if by divine intervention, sparing the scattered homes of her neighbors in Hungry Gulch.
“It changed like that,” Dowd said, snapping her fingers, “like God was looking. If the wind hadn’t gone the other way, they would’ve been in trouble because that thing was rocking. I think somebody said, ‘Please God,’ and the wind started going the other way.”
Evacuation orders for Hungry Gulch and Isabella Highlands were lifted at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
But the Gulch Fire gained size and strength with frightening speed.
As of Wednesday it had consumed nearly 400 acres between Wofford Heights and Lake Isabella, destroyed one cabin and threatened 150 to 160 other homes, according to the Kern County Fire Department.
The cabin that was lost was in the Flora Mine area. The resident escaped unharmed.
There had been no injuries or fatalities as of Wednesday. Damage estimates were not yet available.
Highway 155 was open Wednesday after being closed from about 9 p.m. Tuesday to 5 a.m. the next morning. Officials said it may go down to one lane sporadically to accommodate crews depending on how close the fire gets to the road.
Personnel from the U.S. Forest Service, Kern County Fire Department and Bureau of Land Management were battling the blaze. There were 650 firefighters and support personnel on it.
Full containment is expected by Friday, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Cindy Thill.
“It’s hard because the terrain is pretty rocky,” she said. “Steep and very big boulders, and always hiding in those boulders are rattlesnakes.”
As of Wednesday night, the blaze was 70 percent contained. Earlier in the day, it was estimated at about 35 percent.
Forest Service Operations Section Chief John Carothers, who was covered with soot when he stopped in at the Forest Service’s Isabella Lake Visitor’s Center late in the afternoon, said how much progress would be made would depend largely on weather.
“This is the time of day when the winds really pick up, so that can really change things. If it turns back on itself, of course, that helps us,” Carothers said.
An evacuation center was established at the Lake Isabella Senior Center, 6409 Lake Isabella Blvd. Rome and Mary Nowakowski were among about a dozen people who slept there Tuesday night. Or tried to sleep, anyway.
“It was really loud,” said Rome, 72, who was back home in Hungry Gulch again a few hours before the evacuation order was formally lifted. “You can’t sleep there. People are talking because they’re excited.”
The Nowakowskis built the stucco house they’ve lived in for the last 10 years from the ground up. The interior is almost entirely wood, and they’re in the process of adding a loft.
Rome was watering roses outside when police knocked on the Nowakowskis’ front door and ordered them to leave. They refused, at first, but police returned a few hours later and insisted. By then the couple had packed a few critical belongings and left with those and their newly adopted terrier, Meeka.
Mary, who lost two childhood homes to fire as she was growing up in Colorado, was ready to head out despite her husband’s relative lack of alarm.
“He kept saying, ‘Oh, it’s OK. It’s just a fire,’ but when you’ve lost two homes to fire, you don’t mess around,” she said. “Losing a house is like losing a life. It means so much to you, especially if you’ve built it, yourself. A lot of people around here built their homes, themselves.”
The Isabella Lake region is a popular destination for outdoor recreation, including fishing and boating. The Kern River also draws whitewater river rafters.
Some visitors were caught by surprise by the charred hillsides, parts of which were still smoldering all the way down to the asphalt of Highway 155.
King Lee, 37, of Los Angeles, didn’t know about the fire until he arrived Wednesday, but decided to go fishing, anyway.
“It looks pretty safe to me,” he said shrugging as he patiently waited for a fish to take his bait in the French Gulch Marina.
Nearby, Coral Buskirk of Lake Isabella was playing in the lake with a friend and her friend’s toddler niece and nephew. “I wasn’t really that concerned,” she said. “This happens all the time out here. It’s hot. The kids wanted to play.”
Authorities still haven’t identified a cause of the fire. Officials have asked the public to contact the a tip line at 877-FIRETIP with information about suspicious activity between 6 and 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the vicinity of the French Gulch Bridge.
An evacuation center for large animals was still available at the Kern County Animal Shelter, 14891 Highway 178 in South Lake.
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