Junction Fire, Madera County CA (100% contained)

direct link to video

In my daily wonderings on the internet this morning< I came across the video that I embedded above. You see engines responding to the Junction Fire in Oakhurst, CA on August 18th along with some footage of the fire itself. As coincidence has it, a short time later I saw that a friend of mine had sent me a report from ABC30 (KFSN), updated on August 22nd, the report with two videos plus fire photos may be found here at ABC30 (KFSN). If you look at the  KFSN videos, you will see some nice footage of one of the DC-10 tankers. A Suburban Propane facility was damaged by the fire with two propane tanks exploding. Residences and outbuildings were destroyed.

I checked the CAL FIRE incident web page  (you might have to scroll down a bit to see the summary report for the Junction Fire) for an update on the Junction Fire. The fire started last Monday, Aug. 18 and is now contained having burned 612 acres. A total of 47 buildings were reported as destroyed, I'm not quite sure of the exact breakdown of residences and outbuildings destroyed. Evacuations were in place and were lifted last week. The final detailed report for the incident may be found here (I'm not quite sure how long this link will work but it should work for awhile after I post this article).

While the fire was contained by the time I found the video and KFSN news report, I was struck by the number of people impacted by this wildfire. While some lost their homes, and the CAL FIRE incident report mentions three injuries, I suppose that it could have been worse. In addition to seeing footage of one of the DC-10 tankers working the fire, I saw some footage somewhere (not in the KFSN report I linked to) of a helo and bucket working the fire. Perhaps other aircraft worked the fire as well.