California’s McKinney Fire has destroyed nearly 90 houses and is only 40% contained a week after breaking out in the Klamath National Forest, with hot and dry conditions expected to continue through the weekend.
The blaze, the largest wildfire in California so far this year, erupted on July 29 in the forest near the California-Oregon border and grew rapidly, fueled by winds from thunderstorms.
As of Sunday morning, the fire had burned over 60,200 acres and the perimeter was 40% contained, according to InciWeb, a US clearinghouse for fire information. More than 3,500 fire personnel are involved in battling the fire.
Of 274 structures inspected so far, 87 homes and an additional 47 structures — including garages and commercial buildings — have been destroyed, according to an initial damage assessment released by the Siskiyou County Office of Emergency Services.
The office said a further four structures had minor damage from the fire, with the damage assessment more than 50% complete.
The Klamath River community remains under an evacuation order, as weather conditions were unlikely to help quell the fire over the weekend.
“Conditions have remained sunny and hot around the McKinney fire within the past 24 hours lending to the dry conditions near the incident. High temperatures have neared the triple digits in the valley floors, with excessive heat continuing through Monday before slightly cooler temperatures move in,” he said.
“The combination of the heat, low humidity values, dry conditions and downslope winds mean that further spread of the fire can be anticipated through the weekend and into early next week.Although a thunderstorm cannot be ruled out over the fire region today, it won’t likely contain any meaningful rainfall.”
The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said it was working to try to allow residents back to their properties but that numerous hazards remained in the evacuation zone. Four bodies have been recovered from the burn area, it said earlier in the week.
Search and Rescue teams from California and southern Oregon had contributed more than 1,000 volunteer hours to the operation, the sheriff’s office said in a post on Facebook.
“At least 150 SAR members have been staffing our Law Enforcement Command Post, planning and organizing daily operations, going downriver to assist with searching structures and homes, and everything else that goes into a large incident. We have also had 10 search and rescue K9 teams, starting early in the morning each day,” it said.
Among the homes that burned down was that of Kayla Dailey, who fled the blaze with her family on the due date for her third child.
“I could see nothing but smoke and the fire coming down the mountain,” said Dailey earlier this week. Dailey, her two young sons, husband Levi and the family’s roommate Dalton Shute left in their small car with few possessions.
When she spoke to CNN, Dailey was concerned that the evacuation of the nearest hospital meant she faced a 2-hour trek through the mountains to give birth at a hospital in Medford, Oregon.
On Friday, she shared the news that the local hospital began accepting patients on a limited basis when Dailey went into labor and her baby daughter was born safely via emergency C-section on Thursday. Her brother-in-law has established a GoFundMe page to help the family, which lost everything in the fire.
Shute, the Dailey’s friend and roommate, told CNN that he had lost his mother to a house fire when he was 6 years old. “I feel that sort of emptiness I felt when I was a child,” he said.
But he was optimistic that he and his friends would rebound. “We’re definitely not going to let this set us back,” Shute said.
Valerie Linfoot and her husband, both retired forest firefighters, lost their home of more than three decades.
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