Wildfire — Central Sierra, California

Event narrative (NOAA)

The Creek fire started at 633 pm PDT on September 4th (Labor Day Weekend) in the vicinity of Big Creek, California near the town of Shaver Lake. The fire was in an area of very heavy tree mortality in the Sierra National Forest. The fire had explosive grown on September 5th and 6th under excessive heat and low humidity, but not much wind. The fire became plume dominated on the 5th and column collapses were noted by AlertFire Cameras late on the 5th within the extremely unstable environment. Damaging fire whirls occurred just north of Mammoth Pool with ground survey estimated winds at 115-125 mph, and near Huntington Lake with patterns indicating winds of 90-107 mph. By the evening of September 6th, the fire fire had grown to 73,278 acres. Extensive smoke|allowed the fire to slow some by Mo

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