A prescribed burn on Cooley Ranch, west of Cloverdale on the Mendocino County side of the line, crossed its boundary Friday afternoon, a Cal Fire battalion chief said, and firefighting aircraft were sent in.
Cal Fire opened an incident it calls the Cooley Fire at Elkhorn Road and Cooley Ranch Road, starting at 5:05 p.m. Friday, according to its incident page. As of its last update at 7:55 p.m., the page listed 40 acres and gave the cause as under investigation. Cal Fire’s Mendocino Unit has the fire.
What happened
The burn was on private land. Cal Fire crews were called in to help the property owner after the burn spotted, or jumped, over the road at the top of the ridge and crossed the boundary the owner had set, Cal Fire Battalion Chief Marshall Turbeville told The Press Democrat. By 6:40 p.m., he said, the burn was controlled and would continue into Saturday.
Turbeville told the paper the burn posed no risk to the public, citing low winds and cooler overnight temperatures.
Fire activity picked up on ALERTCalifornia cameras around 4:45 p.m., Redheaded Blackbelt reported. Cal Fire sent a helicopter, an air attack plane and two air tankers, according to scanner traffic the site cited. The tankers dropped retardant until a little after 6 p.m.
How much ground burned outside the planned area isn’t clear. Both outlets put the burned area at about 150 acres Friday evening, against Cal Fire’s 40.
2 burns, 2 days
The Mendocino County Air Quality Management District authorized two burns on the ranch, which sits south of Yorkville, in a notice reprinted by Redheaded Blackbelt. Up to 850 acres in Unit 8 were approved for Friday and up to 500 acres in Unit 5 for Saturday. The district said burns could be postponed or rescheduled depending on weather, air quality and operations.
As of 7:30 a.m. Saturday, the state’s Prescribed Fire Information Reporting System listed the Unit 5 burn as approved for Saturday, managed by a private landowner. It didn’t show whether the burn had been lit.
The weather that week
The burn came during a week of fire weather. PG&E had listed 778 Mendocino County customers among about 88,000 statewide who could lose power during dry offshore winds, Redheaded Blackbelt reported, and temperatures in the area reached the low 90s Friday.
A red flag warning for parts of Mendocino, Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties to the east expired earlier Friday, The Press Democrat reported.
Questions about the burn can go to the Mendocino County Air Quality Management District at 707-463-4354.