- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Supervisors approve health emergency for LNU Lightning Complex cleanup
The complex, which began early on the morning of Aug. 17, has burned 363,220 acres across Colusa, Lake, Napa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties.
The fire has burned 85,000 acres in southern Lake County, officials reported.
Firefighters are in the final stretch of containing it. Cal Fire said Thursday night that the complex was up to 95-percent containment.
The complex has claimed five lives – three in Napa County, two in Solano County – injured four civilians and one first responder, destroyed 1,491 structures and damaged 232 others across six counties, Cal Fire reported.
The Hennessey fire, on the east side of the complex, burned into Lake County. It was 95 percent contained on Thursday, with the Walbridge fire in Sonoma County holding at 55,209 acres and 95-percent containment, Cal Fire said. The 2,360-acre Meyers fire, also in Sonoma County, was fully contained last week.
At one point, it was estimated that about 7,000 Lake County residents had been forced to evacuate due to the complex.
Cal Fire said all evacuation orders and warnings have been lifted, repairs are underway in the fire area and nearly 900 firefighters remain assigned to the incident, working on the final areas needing containment.
In this fire, Lake County lost nine structures, eight of them homes.
Pace issued his health emergency declaration on Wednesday. “Legislative actions taken by both the state of California and the United States Federal Government enabled Lake County to make this declaration and will additionally provide resources and financial assistance to our community members who were directly impacted by the LNU Lightning Complex fire,” he reported.
Pace told the board at its special meeting that the emergency proclamation is “mainly to help us move through the cleanup process” for those nine destroyed structures.
He said state officials are prepared to come on Friday and begin doing hazardous materials sweeps of the burned properties.
Due to issues in the past with the fire cleanups and the length of time it took to carry them out, Pace said he wanted to get the process started quickly.
Health Services Director Denise Pomeroy said CalRecycle called her agency on Tuesday and said they could come and get the local hazardous materials sweeps done on Friday. The declaration is meant to allow that cleanup to go forward.
Craig Wetherbee, a hazardous materials specialist for the Health Services Department, told the board that he has a list of eight properties with destroyed structures. He visited six of them off the Jerusalem Grade on Thursday.
“The good news is, there’s not a whole lot of extensive damage to homes, just those few,” he said.
However, Wetherbee said the nine impacted structures are all total losses, and they have hazardous materials on site that need to be removed.
As an example, he said one burned property had a large 55-gallon drum of oil and a large amount of gasoline.
There was no public comment on the matter before Supervisor Bruno Sabatier moved to approve ratification of the health emergency declaration, which Supervisor EJ Crandell seconded and the board approved 5-0.
Residents seeking more information related to community disaster resources should access the local recovery website.
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