Home Contra Costa County Island Fire Creates Large Smoke Cloud Covering East County

Island Fire Creates Large Smoke Cloud Covering East County

by ECT

A fire out on Sherman Island caused a big cloud of black smoke and ash to spread across East County yesterday afternoon. While the fire was not technically a “controlled fire”, fire crews let the island fire burn itself out since the island has no residents or structures on it while fire crews have little to no access.  The fire was first reported around 1:00 pm.

Some folks as far as Discovery Bay informed me they had ash in their yards and pools.  Residents from Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley felt the majority of the effects from the smoke and ash. Meanwhile, according to a source in Contra Costa Dispatch, they saw a major spike in calls of people asking questions on the fire but had to refer them to Sacramento County.

According to a report from SCRA in Sacramento, the Bay Area Quality Management District said that the fire was a prescribed burn and scorched about 15 acres. Meanwhile, the Contra Costa Times neither Sutter Delta Medical Center or Kaiser Permanente Medical Center reported anyone complaining of smoke inhalation, shortness of breath or other possible effects from the blaze, according to emergency room representatives at the Antioch medical facilities.

The bigger issue is the lack of communication between Sacramento County and Contra Costa as alerts should have been going out immediately as they came in regarding the fire and planned attack to better inform residents of what was transpiring. There was a lot of confusion that could have been solved had information been put out quickly.

sherman Island 1sherman Island 2

These two photos above were taken by Antioch City Councilwoman Monica Wilson near the former Humphrey’s building.

kevin romick

Photo taken by Oakley Mayor Kevin Romick just off of Empire.

james damico

Photo taken by Jimmy D’Amico, if you look closely, you will see the ash from the burn all over the driveway.

robert ruddick

Photo taken by Robert Ruddick all the way from Balfour Rd.

sam bradley

Photo was taken by Sam Bradley

If you have any photos, please feel free to email me at [email protected] and I’ll add them to this post.

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3 comments

Bobby Lott Mar 18, 2013 - 9:30 am

It’s been a lot of fun cleaning my yard this morning

JimSimmons42 Mar 18, 2013 - 9:32 am

It was raining ash pretty badly yesterday, nice shots from many people.

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