SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. (KRON) – Fire crews in the Santa Clara County mountains are trying to get the upper hand on the SCU Lightning Complex Fires.
Hand crews with the California Conservation Corps team up with Cal Fire cutting fire line along Smith Creek in Santa Clara County.
Flames have come dangerously close to Cal Fire Station 12 on Mount Hamilton.
“We do have a lot of dozer’s out here, so they’re going to be pushing those big fire breaks. And, that’s going to be kind of where we want to hold the fire in,” Jake Miller with Cal Fire said.
You can see there was already defensible space between the fire station, and the brush alongside it but Cal Fire says it needs to knock all of this brush down to make sure no embers catch fire and then jump the road.
“The fire did increase in size. It’s up to about 230,000 acres,” Miller said.
That’s about a 90,000 acre jump from the same time 24-hours earlier.
By Friday morning, Miller says 10-percent of the SCU Lightning Complex Fires had been contained — Doubling Thursday’s containment numbers.
Mostly, because fire crews have been able to establish fire lines around the Deer Zone fires burning in Contra Costa County.
One of three zones making up the SCU Lightning Complex.
“Our goals up there on the Deer Zone are too kind of hold the containment lines where they’re currently at. So, there’s not a lot of active flames up there, and we’re just really building on the containment lines, and hopefully, we can kind of wrap that fire up in the next couple of days,” Miller said.
The Calaveras Zone impacts Alameda and Santa Clara counties.
Miller says those fires are coming close to converging with the third area of the complex — the Canyon Zone.
In all, more than 20,000 structures remain threatened. Five have been destroyed.
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