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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
City Manager Alan Flora said limited access to the evacuated area, zone CLE-E157-A will be provided to residents Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m.
Flora said this will facilitate some repopulation of homes not damaged or destroyed by the fire, including those residents living east of Cache Creek Mobile Home Park on Dam Road.
Absent further developments, the evacuation order for zone CLE-E157-A will be lifted on Monday at 8 a.m., Flora said.
Following the lifting of the evacuation order, Flora said a new emergency directive will go into effect restricting access within certain areas of the footprint of the fire that sustained significant damage. This order will restrict non-resident access to certain parcels and closes certain streets to traffic.
There are many hazardous substances present amongst the burned debris that may constitute a serious risk to health and safety, the city said.
All persons entering the area are encouraged to use extreme caution and those with medical conditions that could be exacerbated by the hazards should avoid the area. Residents surveying damage, particularly within the areas with total structure loss, should wear a particulate mask and gloves and avoid ground disturbances that could make the ash go airborne.
For a return to home checklist and more safety information, visit https://www.readyforwildfire.org/post-wildfire/returning-home/.
The city is actively working with county and state partners regarding initial hazardous waste cleanup. Those requested resources are anticipated to become available this week.
Additional information will be provided in the coming days, officials said.
For those residents who will be returning to the Cache Creek Mobile Home Estates, the water system was severely impacted and there is no water service.
A temporary water connection is being established but is not expected to be completed until Tuesday. If you chose to re-populate with the lifting of the evacuation order, plan accordingly for the lack of water in the coming days, officials said.
Showering, restroom facilities, and a limited supply of drinking water are available at the temporary evacuation shelter at the Clearlake Senior Community Center, located at 3245 Bowers Ave. in Clearlake.
While a significant amount of work has been completed with respect to removing burned/dangerous trees, repairing electrical and other utility infrastructure, there is more work that will be completed in the coming days. Please drive with caution and be mindful of the utility workers.
Additionally, there will be a presence of firefighters in the area monitoring for hotspots.
The city of Clearlake and the Lake County Fire Protection District said they appreciate the cooperation and support of the Clearlake community in this trying time. Officials said they will continue to update community members on the recovery status.
- Details
- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — On Saturday night, a small group of people hard hit by the Cache fire were taking refuge at a newly opened evacuation shelter in Clearlake and voicing their gratitude at being alive in the midst of having lost their homes.
Clearlake city officials worked with the Red Cross to set up the shelter at the city’s senior and community center at 3245 Bowers Ave.
The center — equipped with solar power, a large commercial kitchen and a shower trailer with four bathroom stalls — also had an area set up outside for pets. There were several small dogs on leashes and in kennels.
The evacuation shelter had previously been located at Kelseyville High School and Twin Pine Casino in Middletown.
Earlier in the day, in a development that had caught the city of Clearlake off guard, the county of Lake decided to abruptly close the shelter in Middletown, citing small numbers of evacuees.
Evacuee Christina Thomas said they were told Saturday afternoon they were leaving the casino.
By Saturday evening, a Lake Transit bus that had apparently helped transport some evacuees was in the parking lot behind the building and more evacuees were arriving by their own vehicles, packed with what belongings they had left.
As the shelter setup was complete, a bright, smoky-orange sun set behind Mount Konocti, which was soon followed by a bright orange full moon that rose over the hills.
As shelter guests got their bearings, some took the opportunity for the first time in days to get a hot shower before settling in for the night.
Shelter officials said they were set up for 20 evacuees, with about 16 registered.
After several days of exhaustion and confusion, even with the lights on and shelter workers moving around the building to finish setup, some evacuees were on their cots, fast asleep amid the bustle.
Tucked off in the corner, sitting on his cot next to a window in the main room was Gust Jordan, who gave a friendly wave.
He was wearing a large wooden rosary around his neck, a Red Cross blanket next to him, and bags of snacks and Red Cross supply bags on the floor next to his bed. The beds arranged nearby were for several of his family members.
Jordan, who formerly worked in agriculture in Tulare County, moved to Clearlake a year ago. He was living with wife, Christina, one of their daughters and her husband and three grandchildren in a trailer in Creekside Mobile Home Park. Also living nearby were several members of their extended family.
Christina Jordan said that, altogether, her family lost five homes — including the one she and Gust shared, one belonging to her parents, and three others belong to aunts and uncles.
Her aunt, Christina Thomas, who lived in Creekside for 10 years, was the only one whose home survived.
At first, they weren’t sure if they should leave because of the fire. “We did this so many times,” Gust Jordan said of previous fires, noting this felt like another situation of crying wolf.
However, shortly after the fire started, it became apparent that they needed to leave.
Christina Jordan said the fire moved very fast. “It was so windy,” she said, noting her uncle told her they needed to leave.
Gust Jordan said his wife grabbed a box of important papers as they prepared to leave. In their quick departure, they didn’t take his medications or other important items.
The residents were all in a hurry to get out of the park. “Everybody was jumping in their cars,” said Thomas.
Police escorted them out. “They were not asking,” but telling them to leave, Gust Jordan said.
By the time they were leaving, the fire had jumped the road, he said.
They and other family members did what many other evacuees did — they went to the nearby Walmart to wait and see what was happening.
Asked how long they’ll have to stay at the shelter, he said, “I have no idea.”
The Jordans said their daughter and her family were staying in a hotel, rather than the shelter.
Christina Jordan’s parents, Richard and Yolanda Maldonado, also were staying at the shelter on Saturday.
Richard Maldonado said their home was destroyed, and he’s now seeking help with finding housing from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He served in the US Marine Corps from 1956 to 1959.
The Maldonados had lived at Creekside Mobile Home Park for the last two years, and had also lived there previously. Richard Maldonado said they had been evacuated in 2015 due to that year’s fires.
He said they had to evacuate within 20 minutes of the Cache fire starting.
That wasn’t an easy task, as Richard Maldonado currently has to use a wheelchair.
The Maldonados also went to Walmart to wait to see what was going to happen. They were there about an hour to an hour and a half before they were directed to Kelseyville High School, where an evacuation shelter was set up shortly after the fire began.
They and their other family members stayed there until they were told to move to Twin Pine Casino in Middletown on Thursday. Gust Jordan said he lost $40 at the casino. However, he happily recalled a visit from Pastor Aaron York of Jesus Christ Fellowship.
By Saturday afternoon, they were told they were to move again, family members said.
On Saturday night, none of the family members had an idea of how long they would have to stay at the shelter.
In addition to the uncertainty, there is also the emotional toll.
“I don’t think I got any feelings yet,” Richard Maldonado said of the situation, adding he was glad everyone got out alive.
Thomas said that since her home still stands, she intends to share it with her family. “That’ll work.”
“We’re alive,” Christina Jordan said. “That’s all that matters.”
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The 83-acre fire, which an initial estimate said destroyed 56 homes and 81 outbuildings, started Wednesday afternoon. The worst damage was in the Creekside Mobile Home Park, where most of the homes were reported destroyed, with other nearby homes — including some in the Cache Creek Mobile Home Park — also burned to the ground.
With work still underway to put the fire out completely, residents of the Clearlake area south of 18th Avenue and east of Highway 53 except for Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital remained unable to return home on Saturday due to a continuing mandatory evacuation order
While city officials said they hope residents will be able to repopulate that area by Sunday, it’s not yet clear if that will happen due to the amount of tree removal and utility infrastructure that needs to be completed to make it safe.
In the meantime, in the days since the fire several dozen evacuees had been reported to be staying at the evacuation shelter.
That sheltering has been critical for many. The reason, as pointed out by City Manager Alan Flora, is that the fire area was home to some of the community’s poorest members.
The shelter initially was set up on Wednesday afternoon at Kelseyville High School. On Thursday, it was moved to Twin Pine Casino in Middletown.
During Thursday night’s Clearlake City Council meeting, Councilman Russ Cremer had asked why the shelter hadn’t been located at the city’s senior and community center, which has been an evacuation shelter before — including for the Valley fire — and has undergone significant upgrades to make it ready to fulfill that purpose.
Then, on Saturday, Clearlake officials, including Mayor Dirk Slooten, said they were told that County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson had ordered Lake County Social Services staff to leave the shelter, because it was a city emergency, not a county emergency.
“We know that county staff were pulled from the shelter at Carol’s direction this morning,” Flora said.
Flora said the county’s Social Services Department has a sheltering team that’s supposed to respond to such situations, and has done so over the past several years.
Huchingson, Social Services Director Crystal Markytan, Supervisor Moke Simon — who also is chair of the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians, which owns and operates Twin Pine Casino — and Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein did not respond to an email from Lake County News seeking comment on Saturday.
Board Chair Bruno Sabatier, whose district includes Clearlake, said he was working with the city to coordinate with the Red Cross, which is operating the shelter at the city’s senior and community center at 3245 Bowers Ave.
He said he’d spoken to both Huchingson and Simon and was working “to ensure the people displaced by the Cache Fire are taken care of until they can return home or we find more permanent solutions for those who lost a home.”
One county official who did offer to explain the decision was Sheriff Brian Martin.
He told Lake County News that 1,600 people evacuated and that, based on previous events, they expected only about 10% to seek shelter.
At last count Martin said there were only 16 people at the shelter, and since all of the homes that were destroyed were within the city of Clearlake, it wasn’t the county’s or the tribe’s responsibility to help. The Red Cross was willing to operate a shelter at the senior center, so the shelter at Twin Pine was closed.
Martin said he didn’t know when the closure took place but said that Simon said he was giving people adequate time to transition.
“It’s not a county emergency, it’s a city emergency,” Martin said, adding the city has the obligation to handle the situation.
Martin also said there have not been any mutual aid requests from the city to the County Administrative Office that he was aware of at that time.
When asked why the county supported the city of Lakeport’s flood victims in early 2017, Martin said that was because it was considered a countywide emergency.
Another move
Gemini Garcia, a Lake County News contributor, went to Twin Pine to size up the situation midafternoon Saturday and didn’t get a kind greeting at the facility.
She said by that point there was a pop up tent and cots with a few Red Cross blankets set up in the smoky outdoor conditions in a back parking lot.
Three men were left at the casino shelter by then, with several caged small dogs plus one deceased dog waiting for Animal Care and Control to collect it, Garcia said.
She said she spoke with two of the men, who wouldn’t give their names or consent to be photographed. She said they told her that they don’t have family or friends, and no assets.
Garcia said no one could confirm to her that the shelter was moving anywhere.
Later in the afternoon, Slooten said the city was opening up the senior center and getting evacuees moved in that night.
Slooten took direct aim at Huchingson for the treatment of the city’s evacuees, saying it bordered on negligence.
He suggested Huchingson’s actions were in retaliation for an ongoing lawsuit the city has against the county for failing to put up for auction tax defaulted properties, some of them in arrears for decades, within the city.
He said many such properties are in the fire area, and a county map of tax defaulted properties in that location showed several dozen properties in that area that are behind in taxes, some for more than 30 years.
“I am very angry about it,” Slooten said of the situation.
One of the sticking points appeared to be that the city wanted to transport its shower trailer to the casino for evacuees. Flora said for some of them it had been the first time in days they had a chance to bathe. However, he said they were told the casino didn’t want to deal with the shower trailer.
Transitioning to a new location
At the shelter on Saturday night, Cremer, Flora, Councilman Russ Perdock, Sabatier and Police Chief Andrew White were continuing to work with the Red Cross to make sure the shelter was fully operational. Slooten had been there earlier in the evening for the set up.
Evacuees were able to make use of the four-stall shower trailer installed at the center, as well as another shower trailer provided by Adventist Health that Perdock was supervising.
By that point, Flora said he had spoken to Simon, who he said faulted the city for having no plan for moving forward. Flora, in turn, had to remind Simon of the city having been in the midst of the emergency response for several days.
Flora said there had been a lack of communication between the city and county — for which he said Simon apologized — although he said he was not entirely sure what to believe.
In his comments to Lake County News, Martin said there had not been mutual aid requests for help in the emergency, beyond the initial response.
“There’s been numerous requests, since the beginning,” White said when asked about Martin’s statement. “It’s an evolving situation.”
Flora said the city is looking at opening a local assistance center for fire survivors this week and considering ways to move people into other places to stay. He said they are working with state officials to get assistance for short-term housing options
White said they have made contact with virtually everyone with a home in the fire area, and continue to have no missing persons reports.
Due to the fire’s speed and the concentration of homes in the area, Flora said fatalities had been a big concern.
Next steps
The California Department of Housing and Community Development is the agency with jurisdiction over mobile home parks.
Flora said Housing and Community Development inspectors were at the scene on Thursday.
The State Department of Toxic Substances Control has agreed to send a hazmat team to work on mitigations for ash laden with heavy metals, especially around Cache Creek. However, Flora said the state requires the county to declare a health emergency first.
The Board of Supervisors’ Tuesday agenda so far does not have that item included. Flora said it’s his understanding that the acting Public Health officer will make the declaration on Monday and the board will ratify it on Tuesday.
Beyond that help from the state, the city is still facing the potential to have to shoulder the recovery largely on its own due to not meeting state and federal damage thresholds, which would qualify it for emergency assistance.
The city does, however, have notable allies as it seeks help, including Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry and state Sen. Mike McGuire, both of whom have supported Lake County and its communities in previous disasters.
There was another hopeful note at the shelter on Saturday night as well.
Kevin Cox of Hope City, who has been involved in rebuilding homes in the south county that were destroyed in the Valley fire, was at the site to offer support to city officials.
His organization completed its Middletown work earlier this year and is now working in Paradise on Camp fire recovery.
Cox and his 12-person staff have assisted 26,000 families across the country in getting back into homes after fires.
Cremer said Cox was one of the first people who he spoke to this week as the city begins to grapple with its own rebuilding process.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: Angela De Palma-Dow
Dear Lady of the Lake,
I have a timeshare on a channel on Clear Lake. This year with the low water, there is a bright green vine-like plant that is growing across the channel and taking over everything. I have enclosed a photo. Can you tell me what this is and will it go away when the water comes back?
— Paulo
Dear Paulo,
Seems like you are pretty peeved about Primrose and I don’t blame you! Based on the description and photo you provided, this nuisance invasive plant you are asking about is commonly called creeping water primrose, yellow water primrose, or marsh purslane. it’s scientific name is Ludwigia peploides. There is another variety of primrose that is almost identical called Ludwigia hexapetala, also commonly just referred to as marsh purslane, creeping primrose, Uruguay water primrose, or six-petaled primrose (although not all specimens have six-petals). Both of these have been found in abundance in Lake County and around Clear Lake.
Both creeping water primrose species are labeled by Cal-Flora and California Invasive Plant Council (Cal-IPC) high risk rating for invasiveness.
This plant is definitely a nuisance, but it’s origin and status is unclear depending on the source you are using. Some sources, such as the Jepson Manual, consider these plants “naturalized” as they are found all over the Americas, both north and South. This source also considers this plant an invasive weed. The US Department of Agriculture's Invasive Species Compendium (ISC) labels this plant a noxious weed. In many lakes and wetlands Primrose is just another member of the aquatic plant and wetland plant community. However, in other places, like Clear Lake, primrose is a very competitive, aggressive and destructive invasive that displaces native, beneficial wetland plants like tules, smartweed, spike-rush, and native sedges.
Primrose, when it grows densely in a water-way can clog water intakes, restrict boat access and navigation, prevent recreational access, trap fishing lures and lines, and in some cases dense primrose creates the stagnant water conditions that promote West Nile Mosquito habitat.
Description
Invasive primrose is a herbaceous perennial (comes back every year from the same roots). Commonly found in wetland or riparian areas such as shorelines, mud flats, creeks, river edges, wetlands, and marshy areas. This plant will creep along the water surface, hence the “creeping” reference in its common name, but the plant has to root from the shoreline and creeps over the surface of the water. It doesn’t rise up from the water like tules or water lilies do.
The leaves are bright green around 3- 5 inches and can be slender and pointed like a lance with early or younger leaves round or egg-like. The leaves are hairless, and found on a stalk 1-2 inches long. The stem of primrose can grow indefinitely through the summer; I have pulled stems from the water up to 3 meters long.
These plants creep along and grow like strawberries; they send down shoots from the creeping stems that go into the ground so when the plant dies at the end of the season, those roots are ready to grow new growth the next season. It’s perfectly engineered to grow very successfully. This makes it the perfect invasive.
According to Cal-Flora, primrose has a heat tolerance of 95 degrees, but it’s very evident that it can tolerate the months of 100+ degree weather we have been having here. In fact, even without aquatic shorelines this year around Clear Lake due to the drought and record-low water levels, the creeping water primrose seems to be very resilient!
During the summer with low water levels and extreme heat, the tules, as well as other shoreline species, are showing signs of heat and drought stress. However, the creeping primrose seems to be doing just fine! In fact, as you observed Paulo, the primrose is using the drought and low water to its advantage and growing in the empty space provided by the low water levels. Researchers have found that overall warmer climates favor the seedling viability, the germination success, and the biomass of seeds produced in introduced primrose in California and France (Gillard et al. 2018). Again, this is a life history characteristic that makes this plant and excellent and effective invasive species.
So while the drought seems to be benefiting this species, it also grows very well in wet and high-water conditions. I think the primrose growing in the middle of a channel, for example, will not necessarily grow when the channel is under 5-10 feet of water next year, but the shoreline primrose and it’s roots are very much still viable along the shoreline and very capable of creeping into and across the channel throughout the next summer season.
Management and mitigation options
As a lake manager, primrose is one of the most frustrating species that I am trying to manage on Clear Lake. Complete eradication is probably not a feasible goal, so control and maintenance is the more likely strategy for management. This strategy is very expensive and requires consistent and regular effort. Every year more primrose can grow, and every year it has to be actively managed.
Invasive plant management science is a broad and burgeoning field, as new species and newly observed characteristics are constantly adding to the knowledge and field of research. Basically, there are more species and more issues than there are available research funds and researchers. Every system and ecosystem responds differently to the introduced invasive species and potential treatments. Sometimes, a treatment shown to be highly effective in the lab setting is less than successful in the field in real-life applications. That makes management difficult, especially when the options are all very expensive, such as herbicide chemicals or labor intensive manual removal.
For private properties and homeowners that live along Clear Lake shoreline and connected channels and canals, there are management options through the Clear Lake Integrated Aquatic Plant Management Program. With the right permits and instructions, you can manually remove the primrose from your shoreline zone, or you can hire a professional licensed herbicide applicator to chemically treat the primrose on your shoreline.
There is also a local diver company that can manually pull the primrose from your shoreline by hand, but this is most effective when the water level is high enough that the plant is actively growing in the water. This last option is very effective, but most effective for smaller shoreline properties.
There are pros and cons to every treatment option, but for an effective removal that can last, both chemical or manual treatments need to be implemented for several years consecutively in a row to remove the seedbank and any remaining fragments or roots.
If you have property on Clear Lake or just want to learn more about primrose ecology and management, the County of Lake Water Resources Department is hosting a free, virtual webinar on primrose at noon on Friday, Aug. 27. The event flyer is provided below.
Sincerely, Lady of the Lake
Angela De Palma-Dow is a limnologist (limnology = study of fresh inland waters) who lives and works in Lake County. Born in Northern California, she has a Master of Science from Michigan State University. She is a Certified Lake Manager from the North American Lake Management Society, or NALMS, and she is the current president/chair of the California chapter of the Society for Freshwater Science. She can be reached at
