California wildfire forces evacuations, highway closures – NBC Los Angeles

Lina PortmanJune 3, 2024

1 2 minutes read

A wind-driven fire continued to burn thousands of acres 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of San Francisco, prompting residents to flee their homes and closing two major highways near the town of Tracy, W. central California.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the fire broke out Saturday afternoon in the grassy hills managed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the nation's leading centers for science and nuclear weapons technology.

Authorities said the research center was not immediately threatened by the fire, dubbed the Corral Fire, which had consumed some 20 square miles (52 square kilometers) on Sunday afternoon and was only contained at 30%.

Thousands of people in the region, including parts of the town of Tracy with a population of 100,000, were ordered to evacuation centers. Tracy is located approximately 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of California's capital, Sacramento.

CalFire Battalion Chief Josh Silveira said Sunday afternoon that the fire “burned down to homes” in the area and destroyed one home. With calmer winds and milder weather on Sunday, Silveira said he did not expect the fire to spread.

Two firefighters suffered minor to moderate burns Saturday and are expected to make a full recovery, Silveira said.

The wildfire posed no threat to laboratory facilities or operations and the fire had moved away from the site, Lawrence Livermore spokesman Paul Rhien said in a statement to The Associated Press early Sunday.

A view of transmission towers in flames as the Corral Fire continues in San Joaquin County, California on June 2, 2024. Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

“We worked closely with Cal Fire, the Alameda County Fire Department and other emergency service partners throughout the evening,” Rhien said. “As a precautionary measure, we have activated our emergency operations center to monitor the situation throughout the weekend.”

It was not immediately clear how many structures were destroyed by the fire. Photos showed a wall of flames moving over the parched landscape as black smoke rose into the sky.

California firefighters, aided by aircraft, battled a wind-driven wildfire that not only continued to burn but spread early Sunday in an area straddling the San Francisco Bay and central California, they said. authorities said.

“High winds and dry grass made containment by firefighters difficult,” Cal Fire said in a Facebook post Sunday morning.

Interstate 580, which connects the San Francisco Bay Area to San Joaquin County in central California, was closed from the Alameda County line to the Stanislaus County line. SR 132 was also closed from I-580 to SR 33 due to the wildfire, the California Department of Transportation said in a statement.

The San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services has issued an evacuation order for areas west of the California Aqueduct, south of Corral Hollow Creek, west of Alameda County and south of Stanislaus County. A temporary evacuation point has been established at the Larch Clover Community Center in Tracy.

Sunday's high temperature in Tracy is expected to reach 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius), with no rain expected, but warmer conditions are ahead.

The National Weather Service said “dangerously hot conditions” with highs of 103 F to 108 F (39.4 C to 42.2 C) were expected later in the week for the San Joaquin Valley, an area which includes the town of Tracy. Wind gusts of up to 45 mph hit the area Saturday evening, according to meteorologist Idamis Shoemaker of NWS Sacramento.