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| Above: Smoke from the Thomas Fire rises above ODF fire engines and crews. |
Containment on the Thomas Fire in Southern California has reached 60%. This has allowed fire officials to release about a fourth of the personnel assigned to the fire. Among those returning home from the fire are 300 firefighters and support personnel deployed earlier this month through the Oregon Office of the State Fire Marshal, which announced yesterday that the 15 task forces it deployed are returning to Oregon.
As of this morning, some 6,500 personnel were still assigned to the fire, including a contingent of 65 firefighters, heavy-equipment bosses and a helicopter crew member from several ODF districts and the Coos and Douglas Forest Protective Associations. They are expected to be demobilized within the next few days.
One hundred of the 161 out-of-state engines that responded to the Thomas Fire under mutual-aid agreements have come from Oregon. Among the fire engines from Oregon are 25 deployed through ODF. Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Washington State also sent engines.
The Thomas Fire is now reported as 272,000 acres in size. That ranks it second among California wildfires since the 1930s, when reliably accurate sizes began to be recorded for all wildfires. The Thomas Fire is only slightly smaller than the largest wildfire in modern California history – the 2003 Cedar Fire. That fire was also driven by strong Santa Ana winds. It spread across some 273,000 acres, killing 14 people and leaving 104 firefighters injured. By contrast, there has been one firefighter fatality and no reported firefighter injuries at the Thomas Fire.
For the latest information about the Thomas Fire, visit Cal Fire’s incident information page at www.fire.ca.gov/current_incidents
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Left: A sun turned red by smoke from the Thomas Fire in Southern California sets over two ODF engines. They are part of a contingent of 25 engines the agency deployed as part of a mutual-aid agreement with California.