California Fires Break Out Overnight: Kincade Fire & Tick Fire

As California residents anticipated the end of the wildfire season, two wildfires fires broke out on Thursday. The Kincade fire is quickly burning through Sonoma County and the Tick fire is impacting Los Angeles.

Tick Fire broke out early afternoon on Thursday. The fire is a wind-driven brush fire that started on the 31600 block of Tick Canyon Road. The cause of the fire is still unknown. Early Friday morning, the brush fire jumped the 14 freeway and caused the evacuation of 40,000 residents and threatening 10,000 homes. Tick fire has burned 4,000 acres with 5% contained.

Thursday evening, families were forced to evacuate their homes in the dark after a fire broke out in a remote and sparsely populated area of Geyserville around 9pm. As of early Friday morning, the Kincade fire has burned through 16,000 acres and is 5% contained. Although officials have not confirmed the source of the fire, PG&E reported that one of their transmission towers was still powered when the fire broke out. Late Thursday, PG&E cut power to thousands of homes amid dangerous weather conditions to prevent a wildfire outbreak. PG&E claimed that they became aware that a transmission tower was still powered around 9:20pm in Geyserville and the Kincade fire broke out at 9:27pm. This would not be the first time that a faulty transmission tower caused a major wildfire. The deadly Camp Fire of 2018 was caused by PG&E transmission lines.

Other, smaller, fires have broken out overnight according to the California Fire Department. Most have remainder under 100 acres and are 25–50% contained. Strong winds are expected to pick up Friday evening and into the weekend, making the Kincade and Tick fires difficult to manage. As firefighters work overnight to protect homes, residents are reminded to say alert and evacuate at a moment’s notice.

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