In today's newscast:
Growing Timber Fire moves east into wilderness area
Fire officials say the Timber Fire’s recent growth is being driven in part by hotter, drier weather.
It went from about 7,000 acres Friday to more than 12,600 acres Monday.
Patricia Courtney, a U.S. Forest Service information officer, says falling relative humidity (RH) is also a factor.
"We're seeing more overnight burning due to those RH numbers reducing down to... we even got down to 4% the other evening," she said. "So more increased fire activity at night, which is called nocturnal burning, and therefore having more growth within the fire.”
Courtney says the fire is currently moving east through the Ventana Wilderness. No structures have been damaged.
She says firefighters are strengthening existing breaks from past fires and putting in additional containment lines.
Courtney says firefighters are using previous fire history to anticipate how the fire could behave.
"We have 20-plus years of weather activity. We've learned from that," she said. "We kind of predict what we think is going to happen and we go from there."
She says crews are also working to protect structures and livelihoods in case the fire continues advancing.
First responder therapy dogs
For nearly a week, firefighters battling the Timber Fire have headed back to their Marina base camp and found support from therapy dogs.
" There's just something about having that animal that has unconditional love," said Cal Fire Battalion Chief Josh Silveira. He says the endorphin release that comes from interacting with these dogs has been a huge benefit.
"And you're watching pretty gruff firefighters that have been up all night fighting fire, have every interaction from coming to their knees and just loving on the dog [to] crying.”
The nonprofit First Responder Therapy Dogs provides the animals. Silvera says many of the handlers are retired first responders.
There are more than 1,300 firefighters at the Cal State Monterey Bay base camp.
