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| Firefighter Cameron Andersen, of the US Forest Service, pours water on burning embers while clearing hot spots of the King fire in the El Dorado National Forest near Georgetown, Calif., Thursday, Sept. 18, 2014. More than 3,500 firefighters from various agencies are battling the blaze that started Saturday and has burned more than 70,000 acres.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) |
PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A
massive Northern California wildfire is burning so explosively because of the
prolonged drought that firefighters are finding normal amounts of retardant
aren't stopping the flames. And so they are dropping record-breaking amounts —
more than 203,000 gallons in one day alone.
By Friday, state firefighters and
the U.S. Forest Service together had bombarded the conflagration with more than
a half-million gallons of the red slurry, said Lynne Tolmachoff, a state fire
spokeswoman.
But the fire activity is so
extreme it's pushing through their lines.
"They can slow it down a
little bit. But they're not able to hold it long enough to get ground units in
there to extinguish it before it burns through and continues its path,"
Tolmachoff said.
The King Fire, which authorities
said was deliberately set, has chewed through nearly 120 square miles of timber
and vegetation about 60 miles east of Sacramento. It was 10 percent contained.
The blaze in steep terrain forced
the evacuation of 2,800 people and burned multiple structures in the White
Meadows area of Pollock Pines. On Friday, it threatened a key University of
California, Berkeley research station that is home to scores of experiments on
trees, plants and other wildlife.
The fire also is threatening
hydroelectric facilities and power lines that deliver water and electricity to
the Sacramento region and some treasured Sierra Nevada recreations areas, the
Sacramento Bee reported. Some power stations and lines either burned or were
shut down as a precaution, cutting off energy from three utility agencies' hydroelectric
reservoirs.
The man suspected of setting the
fire, Wayne Allen Huntsman, 37, pleaded not guilty to an arson charge Friday in
El Dorado County Superior Court. He was being held on $10 million bail.
Authorities have not said what
evidence they have linking Huntsman to the fire, by far the largest of about a
dozen fires burning statewide.
The record retardant drop
occurred Wednesday, and Thursday was another heavy day. Authorities reduced
drops on Friday because smoke affected visibility for pilots.
Firefighters have used retardant
— a water-and-fertilizer mix colored with red dye — since the 1950s to slow the
advance of wildfires, but the practice is controversial because of its
potential effect on wildlife. The Forest Service recently adjusted its
retardant rules after two lawsuits that alleged the drops were killing fish,
damaging watersheds and harming endangered species.
The agency now can't drop
retardant within 300 feet of bodies of water on federal forest land and can't
dump the slurry in certain exclusion zones designed to protect endangered plant
species. The only exception is if people are in immediate danger from flames.
Andy Stahl, executive director of
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, said the intended purpose of
retardant was "an initial attack tool in very remote fires" to buy
time for crews to get to the scene and dig fire lines.
"But now we're seeing a
dramatic increase in the amount of retardant being dumped because we're not
just using it in those remote wilderness areas, but we're using it on every
fire, everywhere, and there are more fires," he said.
The Forest Service used 12
million gallons of retardant nationwide last year, and 60 percent of it was
dumped on California fires, Stahl said.
The federal restrictions don't
apply to California firefighters, and Cal Fire has increased the amount of
retardant during the past decade..
Tolmachoff, the state fire
spokeswoman, didn't know how many gallons her agency dropped on fires last
year. But she said retardant use was rising because of the addition of bigger
DC-10 air tankers, expanding populations in fire-prone areas and the increasing
size and frequency of fires caused by drought.
"Our main goal in California
is to protect lives and the property and resources, and we put every effort we
can into it," she said.
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