Wildfires & Floods = Road Closures

[Mark Sedenquist]

In addition to the floods in the mid-west that are still causing road closures and delays -- wildfires are keeping some of the American western routes of choice closed.

This thread will try and keep track of some of these for you.

A) Big Sur -- Highway 1 is closed just below Pfeiffer State Park

[Kirby]

Currently in Virginia Beach & Chesapeake there is a lot of smoke from fires on the VA/NC border. I don't know of any closed roads, but it's very irritating and smells pretty bad. People say they can smell it in Delaware. I can't believe CA people live like this all the time. Yuk!

[Mark Sedenquist]

I can't believe CA people live like this all the time. Yuk!

Thanks for the update on the fires in Virginia -- Even though there are 800+ fires burning in California, most folks in the state can't even see any smoke -- California is a big place and unless one is within about 50 miles of a fire, there isn't much chance of too much smoke.

Mark

[Mark Sedenquist]

Highway closures: State highways and local roads are closed throughout Northern California due to wildfire activities. Closures are in place for state highway 32, 36, 70, 89, 96 and 299. Interstate 5 traffic is being reduced to one lane north of Redding in Shasta County. Numerous county and local roads are closed as well.

Click here for links to most of the major fires still burning -- with access information as well.

[Kirby]

I uploaded 2 photos of the smoke. They are from the neighborhood where I am staying (Great Bridge). All day long the smoke moves around. I was in Norfolk today and it wasn't bad at all. But, Chesapeake and Virginia are getting the worst of it. I can't believe this has been going on for weeks.

Today in rained for the first time in weeks (so I've been told). Actually, I got caught in a bad storm in downtown Norfolk this afternoon. Man, the weather changes quickly here. I almost forgot.

[W. Larrison]

Came down from Mt. Shsta today on I-5 to the LA area.

According to the CalTrans reports along the highway and on the radio, 2 of the highways from the central valley to Pacific are closed -- 96 and 36 were the ones I remember.

You *could* see the fire at one spot -- crossing Shasta Lake on the VFW Bridge north of Redding, you could look west and see plumes of smoke from several spots on the mountains. You could smell the fire here as well. You could see plumes of smoke from the mountains west of Redding as well but from what looked like 20 miles or so away, but 299 was open all the way to Eureka on the coast -- but drivers were warned about possible delays, primarily from fire equipment having priority of the road.

The Central Valley had a lot of smoke in it -- you couldn't see from the mountains on one side to the other (but that's not amazingly uncommon -- ground fog and other things ean that visibility > 50 miles isn't every day). But the radio reported smoke, particularly north of Sacramento, and asked people to not do a lot of strenous outdoor activity. It also was going to be 104 F in Redding according to the radio, which might have contributed to that request as well. (Zooming through starting about 8 am, the warmest we encountered was 98 F in the Buttonwillow area at the south end of the Valley.)

I-5 was not closed at any point, nor were the lanes reduced -- we came over the Oregon border about 5 pm on Thursday, and down the valley today. As noted, we didn't notice anything regarding the fire until reaching Lake Shasta. The radio also reported that as of this afternoon, all of the Big Sur fire had not reached any of the state parks or had neared Coast 1 -- the fire was almost exclusively on private lands or in the Big Sur Wilderness area. Coast 1 was still open, but again, drivers were warned that fire vehicles had priority on movement.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Larrison,

That is very useful info -- I had been informed by two different sources that Hwy One was closed and so forth. Thanks for the update.