Corral Fire reaches 12,500 acres overnight east of Livermore

Lina PortmanJune 3, 2024

1 2 minutes read

Image of the Corral Fire taken by the ALERTCalifornia/UC San Diego Highland Peak camera on Saturday, June 1, 2024. (Image provided by PG&E, via Cal Fire and Bay City News)

Residents in neighborhoods southwest of Tracy remain under an evacuation order as the wind-driven Corral Fire continued to expand overnight, reaching 12,500 acres Sunday morning, and parts of Interstate 580 remains closed east of Livermore.

Residents west of the California Aqueduct, south of Corral Hollow Creek, west of Alameda County and south of Stanislaus County were asked to leave the area Saturday evening, according to the office of San Joaquin County Emergency Services.

A temporary evacuation point will be at the Larch Clover Community Center, 11157 West Larch Road in Tracy, the county office said.

The Corral Fire, first reported around 2:30 p.m. Saturday, June 1 east of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Site 300, has grown to 12,500 acres, with 15 percent containment, Cal Fire said around 6:30 a.m. social networks.

Residents east of I-580, between Corral Hollow Road and South Tracy Boulevard, were the first to be asked to leave by the San Joaquin County Office of Emergency Services.

Evacuations were extended to people living west of the California Aqueduct, west of Alameda County and south of Stanislaus County, the county office said in social media posts.

The fire closed I-580 from Corral Hollow Road to I-5 in both directions, Caltrans said on social media.

The map shows the status and size of the Corral Fire in San Joaquin County east of Livermore as of June 2, 2024 at approximately 7:30 a.m. (Image from OpenStreetMap / courtesy CalFire)

Two Alameda County firefighters were hospitalized for minor to moderate burns, said Cheryl Hurd, a department spokeswoman.

The cause of the fire was not immediately determined, Hurd said. She noted that the Corral Fire was not the result of the controlled burning that took place in the area earlier in the week.

Site 300, covering 7,000 acres about 15 miles east of the main Lawrence Livermore site, is part of the lab's nuclear weapons stockpile management program, according to its website. The facility evaluates the operation of non-nuclear weapon components through hydrodynamic testing and tests new conventional explosives for use as part of the nuclear stockpile, the laboratory said.

Editor's note: Jeremy Walsh, editorial director of Embarcadero Media Foundation East Bay, contributed to this story.