Rain aids firefighters' progress battling Northern California's destructive McKinney Fire
Crews battling the McKinney Fire in Northern California have made progress after nearly a week of trying to get the state’s largest wildfire of 2022 under control.
By Thursday, Oregon and California firefighters had contained 10% of the roughly 91-square-mile blaze on its southeastern side near the Siskiyou County seat of Yreka, home to around 7,800 people.
“We went in and did quite a bit of work around that community before that fire reached it,” said Siskiyou County fire chief Phil Anzo at a community meeting shared on Facebook Wednesday night. The McKinney Fire continues to burn 4 miles west of Yreka.
The fire ignited Friday afternoon in the Oak Knoll Ranger District of the Klamath National Forest, according to InciWeb. It quickly exploded in size in a region impacted by a long-term drought.
In Klamath River, a community 22 miles northwest of Yreka with a population of about 200 people, at least 50 structures were damaged, reported the Register-Guard of Oregon, part of the USA TODAY Network. Klamath River is located within the wildfire’s northern perimeter.
The fire has damaged more than 100 homes and other buildings overall.
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The McKinney Fire death toll remains at four as of Thursday, according to officials. The victims’ names are not yet confirmed, said Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue at the community meeting.
At an evacuation center Wednesday, Bill Simms said that three of the four victims were his neighbors. Two were a married couple who lived up the road.
“I don’t get emotional about stuff and material things,” Simms said. “But when you hear my next-door neighbors died ... that gets a little emotional.”
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A private contractor working the wildfire within an evacuation zone sustained non-life-threatening injuries Wednesday after a bridge gave out, the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook. He was taken to a hospital.
Recent rainfall aided firefighters in getting closer to the wildfire’s edge, said Anzo, who added there’s still work to be done.
“You really don't know how large this thing is until you start driving around it, it is massive,” he told community members.
Firefighters’ progress prompted the Yreka Police Department to reduce the city’s evacuation order to an evacuation warning Wednesday, allowing residents to return home with a word of caution not to treat the change as a full opening.
“The fire is still a danger to Yreka,” said Yreka police chief Mark Gilman in a statement. “A warning zone means be ready to move out at a moment’s notice.”
About 5,200 Californians are under evacuation warnings or live in an affected area, and 1,300 people remain under an evacuation order, according to Siskiyou County emergency manager Bryan Schoene.
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: McKinney Fire evacuation orders ease as firefighters make progress
