Half-dozen wildfires ignite in Mendocino County, where Turnout fire grows to 200 acres

Firefighters on Monday continued battling a 200-acre wildfire that ignited Sunday outside of Boonville in Mendocino County ― the largest of six small wildland blazes in the county over this past scorching weekend, and a worrisome sign that fire season looks to be arriving early on the parched North Coast.

The Turnout fire, which erupted at 5:51 p.m. Sunday, was 20% contained by early Monday evening. It was not threatening homes or structures, said Cal Fire spokeswoman Tricia Austin.

A total of 72 fire personnel, five engines, four hand crews, a dozer, a water tanker and a helicopter were fighting the fire, which is burning in steep, rugged terrain near Highway 253 and Boonville Road.

Austin said the area was hot and dry Monday afternoon, and firefighters worked to establish a perimeter around the fire before conditions worsened later in the day.

“They’re taking this morning opportunity to strengthen the containment with the anticipated winds that always show up in the afternoon,” she said.

All of the other five wildfires in the county were quickly contained to no more than a few acres, according to Cal Fire.

So far this year, there have been 1,200 fires across the state burning just under 1,900 acres, according to Cal Fire Lake-Sonoma-Napa Division Chief Ben Nicholls. That’s double the amount of blazes and triple the acreage for a normal year.

The April fires ― igniting more than a month before the traditional start of fire season ― are being driven by high seasonal temperatures, gusty wind conditions and an abundance of dried-out vegetation after a lack of rainfall this past winter and spring, Nicholls said.

Since Oct. 1, the most of the North Bay has received only around 40% of average by this time of the year.

Nicholls said incoming rain forecast for this weekend will be a key factor in determining the start of this year’s fire season in the North Bay, which Cal Fire typically declares in late May or early June.

“If those rains don’t come… we have a good chance of an earlier than average declaration,” he said.

That decision would trigger the agency’s Sonoma-Lake-Napa unit to nearly double its seasonal firefighting force from 291 uniformed personnel to a peak of 534 firefighters and other crew members, Nicholls said.

Already, the agency is training some additional personnel, including firefighters to man an additional fourth engine in Sonoma County.

In Lake County on Sunday, firefighters quickly contained a double house fire on Cerrito Drive in Clearlake Oaks that turned into a small wildland blaze due to the warm weather and low humidity, said Doyle Head, battalion chief with the Northshore Fire Protection District.

Head said a few other small wildfires started in the region over the weekend, the result escaped controlled burns.

“It’s a precursor to what’s coming,” he said.