Thursday afternoon along Eureka Way in Redding a steady stream of speeding firetrucks and emergency vehicles roared west as a cacophony of wailing sirens filled the air. Large tanker planes flew over Redding, heading west. According to a Caltrans report, a fire off Highway 299 had closed the Whiskeytown area west of Redding. The fire erupted after a head-on collision.
Image source: Caltrans District 2 Facebook page.
From a distance on his west-Redding property, Jim Dowling photographed some tankers flying and dropping retardant on the fire.
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- Photo by Jim Dowling.
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- Photo by Jim Dowling.
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- Photo by Jim Dowling.
According to a California Highway Patrol incident report, the fire began Thursday on Kennedy Memorial Road off Highway 299 west near Whiskeytown Lake following an 11:55 a.m. head-on collision between a big rig and a red Ford Explorer.
Within minutes the big rig was on fire. The blaze quickly spread to the adjacent roadside vegetation. By 12:01 p.m. the fire was moving up the south side of Highway 299, and could be easily seen from Shasta just west of Redding. By 12:03 p.m. the big rig was fully engulfed in flames.
The driver of the SUV died. The big rig driver suffered undisclosed injuries. The name of the deceased SUV driver has not been released.
Multiple fire vehicles were en route to the incident minutes after noon. At last report, the Kennedy Fire had consumed about 35 acres.
Aaron Oechsli of Redding was at Whiskeytown Lake when the fire broke out. He captured several photographs and videos and shared them with A News Cafe. Here’s Oechsli’s story:
I was out swimming at the peninsula near the beginning of Davis Gulch trail. I was in the midst of sending a video message to a friend when I noticed a hint of smoke rising over the ridge to the east. Thinking this was the genesis of a potential forest fire, and knowing (from experience) how quickly they can spread, I left the water, dried off, and made my way up the trail as quickly as I could.
When I got to the trailhead, even from my distance, I could see from the Davis Gulch trailhead where my car was parked that the fire had become much more intense. And just driving from there to make may way across the dam, it had already crested the ridge. Driving toward the main park entrance, it had dropped a number of spot fires down the Whiskeytown Park side of the ridge and was in very close proximity to park headquarters.
By the time I had reached the park entrance, Highway 299 was backed up with traffic at the entrance and down Highway 299 west. The road appeared closed, but at the time, no one was managing traffic, so there wasn’t a way to exit out of the park.
I saw a CalFire truck enter the park, and decided to follow it knowing that if I could make it safely through the fire, I could then use the backroad to Shasta/Igo and from there connect with Highway 299 closer into Redding. With the fire seeming to be headed west, and also with two or three ridge lines between that road and the fire, I figured it was worth the risk of heading that way, instead of relying on someone to start managing traffic to make sure people could get out of the park. The gamble obviously paid off, and I was able to make it safely through to Highway 299 without incident (other than causing my poor little trusty Mitsubishi Outlander — “Mitsurugi” — some unnecessary roughness).
When I arrived back in Redding, the Redding Police Department had just closed off 299 west access at Eureka way.
Photos and videos by Aaron Oechsli of Redding
Update, 7:30 p.m. Thur. Aug. 18.
Second Highway 299-area head-on collision causes fire
In an unrelated story, according to a CHP incident report, a second head-on collision caused another fire, this time near Buckhorn Summit on Highway 299 near the Shasta-Trinity county borders.
The crash occurred around 6:30 p.m. between a sedan and a big rig. The big rig hit the guardrails and burst into flames. According to the report, a preliminary assertion was the sedan was traveling at a high rate of speed prior to the crash.
According to KRCR, at least one person is reported to have died in the crash.
