NEVADA CITY, Calif. August 17, 2017 – As we approach the peak of high fire season, time to take a look the statistics for our local area. CAL FIRE’s Nevada Yuba Placer unit (NEU) has already responded to 254 wildland fires this year. The fires burned 394 acres as of today. The Tahoe National Forest responded to 23 wildfires for 1,165 acres in the same time-frame. Of their 23 fires, 15 were human-caused and charred 3 acres. Escaped camp fires make up the bulk of the 15. The lightning-caused Chilcoot Fire accounts for 1,021 acres of the total.
NEU also responded to 225 structure fires and 1,657 miscellaneous fires, in other words overheated vehicles, railroad ties on fire, garbage can fires, legal debris fires and campfires (if they did not escape control).
Meanwhile they also responded to 15, 801 medical calls, 1,304 haz mat situations and their law enforcement officers dealt with 133 separate incidents. Add 2,206 public service calls and NEU dispatchers have sent units out 21,580 times this year.
The area breakdown for the 21,580 dispatches shows 10,267 calls in the State Responsibility area (SRA) 10,843 in the Local Responsibility Area (LRA) and 470 in the Federal Responsibility Area (FRA).
Adding the 1,063 incidents dispatched by the Tahoe National Forest, the grand total of the Grass Valley Emergency Command Center (ECC) stands at 22,643 dispatches as of this morning.
And it’s only August…