CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – On Sunday, Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin issued an emergency proclamation for the Pawnee fire, which is continuing to actively burn east of Clearlake Oaks in the Spring Valley Lakes subdivision.

The fire’s size estimate on Sunday doubled to 3,000 acres, with zero containment, Martin told Lake County News.

“It’s still extremely active” he said.

The fire, which was first dispatched on Saturday evening, led Martin’s office to issuing a mandatory evacuation order for all of the Spring Valley Lakes subdivision within hours of the incident’s start.

Martin said an estimated 1,000 people have evacuated from 500 homes in the Spring Valley Lakes area.

Cal Fire confirmed on Sunday that 12 structures burned overnight in Spring Valley Lakes, with 600 structures still threatened.

Martin said some of the homes destroyed were along Wolf Creek Road but he did not have specifics about all of the addresses.

He said a damage inspection team is due to go into the area where the homes burned.

Overnight, firefighters battled not just the fire but dangerous conditions – including a gusting north wind and downed power lines.

The downed lines led to incident command requesting Pacific Gas and Electric to cut power to Spring Valley, which was done early Sunday, just before 1 a.m., according to PG&E.

PG&E reported that the outage impacts more than 500 customers and is expected to continue until Monday evening.

Martin said the mandatory evacuations will remain in effect until further notice.

He said some residents have remained behind.

“Everybody has been notified but not everybody has gotten out of there,” he said, explaining that some people refused to leave.

Throughout the night, deputies and firefighters responded to help evacuate people who hadn’t left immediately, he said.

An evacuation center has been established at Lower Lake High School, 9430 Lake St., for impacted residents. The center is being staffed by American Red Cross as well as representative from the Lake County Department of Social Services, Martin reported.

That main evacuation center still has a sparse population, with many people remaining at the Clearlake Oaks Moose Lodge, Martin said. However, he said the Lower Lake High evacuation center will remain open in the expectation that it will be needed.

Martin said a location for a second evacuation center has been lined up and will be opened if needed.

Lake County Animal Care and Control’s Lake Evacuation and Animal Protection also has been at work evacuating animals from the fire.

Staging for animal evacuations is located at Lake County Social Services, 15975 Anderson Ranch Parkway, Lower Lake. For additional animal needs, call animal control at 707-263-0278.

Firefighters remain hard at work on the incident, working both on the ground and from the air, according to Cal Fire.

On Sunday, Cal fire said numerous firefighting air tankers from throughout the state are flying fire suppression missions as conditions allow.

The Pawnee fire area and much of Lake County remains under a red flag warning and heat advisory until Sunday because of hot, dry conditions coupled with northerly winds.

Martin said his local emergency declaration will go to the Board of Supervisors at its Tuesday meeting, at the same time as it considers renewing similar declarations for other major wildland fire incidents affecting the county over the past few years.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

062418 Pawnee Fire Emergency Proclamation by LakeCoNews on Scribd