On Tuesday we were at the Beaver Fire northwest of Yreka, California, watching it move down and across slopes above the Klamath River. Below are some photos we took. Over the next two days we will post more.
The Beaver Fire has already reached Highway 96 in several places along a 12 to 14 mile stretch of the road. On Tuesday it was backing, primarily, down the hill in the vicinity of the Klamath River School, and east of the school. Generally it was moving fairly slowly while we were there, with one to three trees succumbing to flames at a time, or torching as firefighters call it.
Firefighters are protecting structures up in the woods away from the road as best they can. Helicopters were assisting ground-based firefighters by dropping water from the river and fire retardant from a portable retardant plant. At Fire Aviation you can see photos of a Sikorsky Air-Crane reloading with retardant. During the three hours we were at the south end of the fire we did not see any air tankers.
The last size estimate from the Incident Management Team was a couple of days ago when it was mapped at about 28,000 acres. Clouds at night have interfered with the ability of the airborne infrared mapping crew to accurately provide a fire perimeter and current acreage. The Team is calling it 30 percent contained.
