The Mill Fire ignited near Weed, Calif., on Sept. 2, 2022.
A wildfire exploded in Northern California‘s Siskiyou County on Friday, leading to several injuries and forcing more than 5,000 people to evacuate in Weed, Lake Shastina and Edgewood, small communities that have repeatedly been impacted by fire in recent years.
The Mill Fire was first reported at 12:49 p.m. near Woodridge Court and Woodridge Way in the city of Weed, Cal Fire said. Multiple media outlets said that it started in the area of the Roseburg Forest Products mill, but Cal Fire could not confirm this and said the exact location where it started and the cause is under investigation.
Driven by winds and hot temperatures, the blaze ballooned to 200 acres by 2 p.m. and reached 2,581 by 8 p.m. Cal Fire said the fire was spreading at a “dangerous rate.”
The Mill Fire ignited near Weed, Calif., on Sept. 2, 2022.
With views of Mountain Shasta looming in the distance, Weed is a small town with a population of about 2,600 people; it’s 280 miles north of San Francisco. Edgewood, Carrick and Lake Shastina are among the unincorporated communities surrounding Weed.
Suzi Brady, a Cal Fire spokeswoman, told SFGATE on the phone Friday evening that structures have burned in the blaze, but she could not confirm how many or give general locations.
The fire closed U.S. Route 97 from the junction with State Route 265 in Weed to approximately 6 miles south of Macdoel, Caltrans said.
Amy Graff is the news editor for SFGATE. She was born and raised in the Bay Area and got her start in news at the Daily Californian newspaper at UC Berkeley where she majored in English literature. She has been with SFGATE for more than 10 years. You can email her at agraff@sfgate.com.