After 10 days, the Creek Fire ranks among the biggest in California wildfire history
Update: 10:15 a.m. Monday
The Creek Fire continues to grow in acreage in eastern Fresno and Madera counties, and continues to climb up the ladder of largest wildfires in California history.
The fire, which began on the evening of Sept. 4, now encompasses nearly 213,000 acres in the Sierra National Forest. That’s about 21% more acreage than Friday, when firefighting crews estimated the size at almost 176,000 acres.
Containment of the blaze is now estimated at 10% – indicating that fire lines have been completed around 10% of the fire’s perimeter. Entering the weekend, containment was reported at 6%.
Since Friday, the Creek Fire rose from 16th on Cal Fire’s list of largest wildfires in the state’s history to 13th on Monday.
Acreage estimates for other major fires burning in California have been updated below.
Original story
The Creek Fire, rampaging in the Sierra National Forest in eastern Fresno and Madera counties, has charred an estimated 196,667 acres as of Saturday and devastated dozens of homes and businesses in the mountain communities.
Yet after only a week, the Creek Fire – along with at least four other major wildfires burning in California – is rewriting the record books in 2020 for the largest recorded wildfires in the state’s history.
As of Friday, the fire was already ranked by Cal Fire as 16th among the 20 biggest wildland fires dating to the 1930s. And within the past week it became the largest fire ever fire to burn in the Sierra Nevada mountain areas of central California in Mariposa, Madera, Fresno and Tulare counties.
In the Sierra National Forest, millions of trees weakened by drought over much of the past decade and killed by bark beetles are providing plenty of fuel for the fire – in a state already battling dozens of other wildfires that so far this year have burned more than 2 million acres.
According to data from Cal Fire and the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, the Creek Fire has covered more acreage in the central Sierra Nevada than other major blazes:
The Rough Fire – From its start on July 31, 2015 until it was snuffed more than three months later, the Rough Fire burned almost 152,000 acres in the Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park.
The McNally Fire – After an abandoned campfire got out of hand near the Tulare County mountain settlement of Roads End on July 21, 2002, the McNally Fire burned more than 150,000 acres in the Sequoia National Forest in Tulare and Kern counties before it was vanquished about five weeks later.
The Ferguson Fire – After the Ferguson Fire broke out on July 13, 2018, it encompassed almost 97,000 acres before it was contained about five weeks later, but it wasn’t fully extinguished until the following January. During the monthlong containment battle, it burned in the Sierra National Forest and Stanislaus National Forest as well as Yosemite National Park.
The statewide scope
Statewide, four of the 10 largest wildfires in California history are burning now in northern California. They include:
- The August Complex, which is now the largest ever in the state. As of Monday morning, it’s burned more than 877,000 across its south and north zones in parts of Mendocino, Humboldt and nearby counties in northern California since it began on Aug. 16.
- The SCU Lightning Complex has not grown appreciably since Friday, remaining at almost 400,000 acres in Stanislaus, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties. Since it started on Aug. 18, it is the third-largest wildfire on the historic-fires list.
- The LNU Lightning Complex started on Aug. 17 and, like the SCU Complex, has remained stable in size since Friday at almost 365,000 acres in Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Yolo and Solano counties and now ranks fourth among the state’s largest wildfires in history.
- In Plumas County, the North Complex fire began Aug. 18 and is estimated at more than 261,000 acres as of Monday morning, which ranks it eight on the list.
This story was originally published September 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "After 10 days, the Creek Fire ranks among the biggest in California wildfire history."
