Spring Valley residents weary of annual wildfires in Lake County

SPRING VALLEY — From the back porch of Christopher Musser’s home on Cache Creek Road, smoke — at times black, brown and white — billowed up from the top of Chalk Mountain about a mile away Monday afternoon.

Flames burst through the smoke near the top of the mountain just before 2 p.m., defying winds that were pushing the hillside blaze away from fire-weary Spring Valley.

Musser, 68, evacuated his home Saturday evening, when fire came over the ridge and down the hill in front of his house in Spring Valley, stopping right at the property line of homes across the street. He and a housemate, Don White, 60, fled to the valley floor.

“I’m feeling overwhelmed,” Musser said. “We haven’t slept more than two hours since it started. The first night we slept in the car.”

Musser, like many residents in Spring Valley, spent much of Monday in a daze, almost battle-worn from Northern California’s latest wildfire. Residents expressed a sense of frustration and fatigue, cursing both fires of the past and the ones that are sure to come.

“It’s the third freaking day of summer,” said Musser. “It hasn’t even started, really.”

Though a mandatory evacuation was in place for the Spring Valley and neighboring areas, some residents remained close to their homes Monday. Like Musser they checked on their homes and the homes of friends and family, taking cellphone pictures or feeding animals and pets that had been left behind.

The hillsides all around Spring Valley were charred and ashen, some spots still smoldering. The ridges southeast of the valley floor were still very much ablaze. As winds kicked up Monday afternoon, small spot fires sent flames racing through brush and trees that not yet burned.

At Spring Valley’s Pantry, a community market on the corner of Spring Valley and New Long Valley roads, local residents who stayed behind gathered to exchange information and keep track of the smoke and flames to the east.

Michael Anderson, 60, who lives on Spring Valley Road, had just returned home from a lunch shift at a local eatery where he works as a chef on Saturday when he first saw the fire.

“I’m sitting on my porch relaxing and I look up and see smoke,” he said. “With the high winds, it jumped New Long Valley Road.”

Anderson sent his wife to safety on Sunday, when fire burned all around Spring Valley. Most of the homes on the valley floor were spared.

“Basically it’s close to 360 degrees all around — a ring of fire,” Anderson said. Musser used the same description.

Cal Fire Capt. Amy Head urged local residents to leave the Spring Valley area until firefighters achieve some level of containment. By Monday evening, firefighters had contained 5 percent of the fire, mostly around homes along its southern perimeter. The blaze had burned 10,500 acres, destroying 12 homes and 10 outbuildings. Flames still threatened 600 homes, leaving 1,500 people under orders to evacuate from the area.

“Some people didn’t evacuate, which is not our suggestion,” said Head, sitting outside Spring Valley’s Pantry. Winds blowing east from the coast kicked up the flames as a large Air OV-10 Bronco air tanker roared overhead, led by a smaller plane toward the burning ridges, where it dropped bright red fire retardant.

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