Delta Fire north of Redding grows to 22,000 acres

(UPDATED at 7:15 p.m. PDT September 6, 2018)

The Delta Fire 24 miles north of Redding, California has grown to approximately 22,000 acres according to the latest estimate from fire officials.

(To see the all of the articles on Wildfire Today about the Delta Fire including the most recent, click here: https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/delta-fire/)

Crews have worked to anchor the south end of the fire along Dog Creek. To stop the fire’s northern spread and protect structures firefighters have started a backfiring operation east of Interstate 5 from Pollard Flats to the western side of the Hirz Fire near Salt Creek Road. Many of the contingency firelines on the eastern side of the Hirz Fire may be used in the efforts to control the Delta Fire.

Evacuations are being managed by the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office.

The maps below show the perimeter of the Delta Fire. The red lines were the edge of the fire at 10 p.m. PDT on September 5 as mapped by a fixed wing aircraft. The white lines represent the APPROXIMATE location of additional growth between then and 2:04 p.m. PDT on September 6, based on heat detected by a satellite.

BAE 146-200 landing at Redding Air Attack Base with building pyrocumulus cloud from Delta Fire in the background. #deltafire @mobones1 https://t.co/uz3N59nIyF pic.twitter.com/DfEqKlTggD

— Kempter’s Fire Wire (@KempterFireWire) September 7, 2018

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(Originally published at 6:17 a.m. PDT September 6, 2018)

The Delta Fire has closed Interstate 5 and is causing evacuations 24 miles north of Redding, California. Nine hours after it was reported at 12:51 p.m. PDT on September 5 a mapping flight found that it had burned 15,294 acres. A heat-detecting satellite four hours later saw an additional 4,000 acres on the northwest and northeast sides of the fire.

Interstate 5, the primary north/south highway in Northern California, is closed from 10 miles north of Redding at Fawndale Road to 3 miles south of Mount Shasta at Mott Road. The fire is burning on both sides of the Interstate along a five-mile stretch.

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office conducted evacuations on both sides of I-5 north of Lakehead to the Shasta/Siskiyou county line. An evacuation center is at the Mt. Shasta Community Center, 629 Alder St. in Mt. Shasta.

California Interagency Incident Management Team 5 (CIIMT5) is now managing the Delta Fire in addition to the nearby Hirz Fire which was winding down. On Wednesday 466 personnel were demobilized from the 46,000-acre Hirz Fire 2 miles east of the Delta Fire, leaving about 1,400 on the Hirz Fire. The heat detected by a satellite at 2:42 a.m. PDT on Thursday indicates that the two fires may have already merged.

Initially reported as three fires, they merged into one, exhibiting extreme fire behavior with rapid rates of spread up to one mile per hour. Wednesday evening the fire front was more than three miles wide on the northern side with 300-foot flame lengths.

California #DeltaFire looking real fierce. 0% contained pic.twitter.com/VHjHT9WUwa

— Brian Sozzi (@BrianSozzi) September 6, 2018