The Tucker Fire was a

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...

that burned near

Clear Lake National Wildlife Refuge Clear Lake National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge of the United States in northeastern California. It includes about of open water surrounded by over of upland bunchgrass, low sagebrush, and juniper habitat. small, rocky islands ...

in Modoc County, California in the United States. The fire ignited on Sunday, July 28, 2019 along Highway 139 and went on to burn an estimated 14,217 acres of land. As of August 15, the fire was 95% contained. Officials say the wildfire was caused by traffic on Highway 139.

Progression

The Tucker fire ignited on Sunday, July 28, along Tucker Butte Road, east of California State Route 139 near the Perez Overpass and immediately grew to over of land its first several hours of burning. Throughout its run, the fire did not impact any structures of note however did directly impact large transmission lines within the fire area. Early Monday, July 29, the fire had grown to an estimated . Later that day, the fire spotted outside of control lines and proceeded to balloon in size to over throughout that afternoon due to warm and dry weather conditions, burning predominantly northeast towards

Clear Lake Reservoir Clear Lake Reservoir is a reservoir in the Klamath Basin and the Modoc National Forest, in northwestern Modoc County, California. It is part of the Klamath Project. and about northwest of Alturas. It is formed by Clear Lake Dam on the Lost Ri ...

. During that time, residents along County Road 114/202, Coyote Butte and the Horse Mountain areas were put under a fire warning, but not under any evacuation warning. At the time, the Tucker Fire was regarded as the largest blaze to burn on National Forest Land during the 2019 fire season as the blaze had grown to upwards of in what had been regarded as an unusually inactive fire season for the state. Late Monday evening, as the blaze made its way to a nature fire break in the Clear Lake Reservoir, fire crews conducted burn-out operations to corral the flare up wherever necessary. By this time over 500 firefighters where actively engaging the fire. By Tuesday, July 30, the Tucker Fire had not displayed any erratic behavior as it had the previous two days of burning and was estimated to be with at least 10% containment. Within the following days, the fires containment would grow to 95% as the estimated acreage would be slightly downgraded to .

Cause

The

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

cited that, much like two previous fires in the Modoc County area during the summer fire season, the Tucker fires ignition was directly human-caused, however unintentionally. No further details have been reported on the specifics of the fires ignition as of this time.

References

{{California wildfires 2019 California wildfires July 2019 events in the United States Wildfires in Modoc County, California