California wildfires 2020 map4/11/2024 ![]() ![]() These "firenadoes" formed due to the intense heat the fire had generated, which pulled in air, creating rotational vortices. Damage included uprooted pine trees as well as stripped bark. The Creek Fire also spawned two fire tornadoes on September 5 the first was rated EF2 near Huntington Lake with approximately 125 mph winds, and the second was rated EF1 near Mammoth Pool with approximately 100 mph winds. The fire has been characterized as a plume-dominated blaze, where the environment allows for the continued upward blowing of smoke and the vertical transfer of heat, causing extreme fire behavior, such as multiple fire tornadoes observed using Doppler weather radar data. The fire was fed in part by these cloud formations, which generated downdrafts that supplied the fire with additional oxygen and pushed it across fire lines. Roughly eighteen hours after the fire had begun, the Creek Fire began producing a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, which, observed by radar and satellite, became one of the largest such events on record in the United States, or even North America. ĭriven by powerful diurnal up-canyon winds within the San Joaquin River drainage, the Creek Fire quickly became a firestorm. The fire had burned 2,000 acres (810 ha) by the following morning and 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) by that afternoon. PDT on Friday, September 4, 2020, in the Big Creek drainage area between Shaver Lake, Big Creek, and Huntington Lake, California. Forest Service, the Creek Fire began at approximately 6:45 p.m. ![]() Progression GOES-17 satellite imagery of a pyrocumulonimbus cloud exploding above the Creek Fire on September 5 September 4–5 Īccording to the U.S. Forest Service estimated that dead stands of trees that burned in the fire contained 2,000 tons of fuel for every one acre (0.40 ha). Tree mortality rates reached 80% in what became the Creek Fire footprint. Bark beetle infestation and California's drought between 20 killed almost 150 million trees in the Sierra Nevada, including more than 36 million trees in the Sierra National Forest alone between 20-the most of any national forest in California. The burn area largely comprised mixed coniferous forest containing ponderosa pine, sugar pine, white fir, incense-cedar, and California black oak trees. The Creek Fire burned largely in the Sierra National Forest, which spans more than 1.3 million acres (530,000 ha) at an elevation range of ~900–14,000 feet (270–4,270 m). The first two days of the Creek Fire's growth saw abnormally hot and dry conditions for the region. Over Labor Day weekend, the state suffered "one of its hottest weekends in memory", leading the National Weather Service to issue widespread heat advisories and red flag warnings. Between August 15 and September 9 alone, more than 1.6 million acres (650,000 ha) had burned, more than five times California's average acreage burned by that date. The Creek Fire occurred amid an already quite active wildfire season in California, which until early September had largely been driven by an outbreak of dry thunderstorms in mid-August. The combined cost of the months-long firefighting effort and damage to private and county property exceeded $500 million. The Creek Fire destroyed hundreds of structures in Sierra Nevada communities, adding up to 856 buildings destroyed and dozens more damaged. Despite this, the fire caused zero fatalities, though there were more than twenty injuries. Tens of thousands of residents in Fresno and Madera counties were forced to evacuate, and the fire also necessitated the helicopter rescue of hundreds of people by the California National Guard after they became trapped at Mammoth Pool Reservoir. not part of a larger wildfire complex-following the 2021 Dixie Fire. ![]() The Creek Fire is the fifth-largest wildfire in recorded California history and the second-largest single fire-i.e. One of the most significant fires of California's record-setting 2020 wildfire season, it began on September 4, 2020, and burned 379,895 acres (153,738 ha) over several months until it was declared 100% contained on December 24, 2020. The 2020 Creek Fire was a very large wildfire in central California's Sierra National Forest, in Fresno and Madera counties. The general location of the Creek Fire in central California ![]()
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