Creek Fire: 150 trapped, 10 injured at Mammoth Pool campground as fire grows to 36,000 acres
The blaze has forced evacuations in numerous Fresno and Madera County mountain communities and thrown a wrench in many families' Labor Day weekend plans.
"It's just crazy," says Chris Sandahl. "It's a beautiful sight but at the same time, very sad."
"I think the plan is to hang out and enjoy our time until something happens," says Jayson Dandurand. "If they tell us to leave, we're going to leave."
At about 5:30 pm on Saturday, Sierra National Forest officials said the fire had exploded to 36,000 acres with 0% containment.
The Madera County Sheriff's Office says 150 people are trapped at the Mammoth Pool campground and that 10 of those people had been injured.
The sheriff's office is in contact with them and rescue teams are organizing aircrafts to evacuate them.
The trapped people are sheltering at Mammoth Pool Boat Launch.
As soon as a reunification center is established, they will release that location.
There's currently an evacuation warning for Shaver Lake.
But the communities of Big Creek, Camp Sierra and Huntington Lake are all under a mandatory evacuation order.
So Tim Cohee, managing partner of China Peak Mountain Resort, says the fire has essentially cut their summer season short.
"It's been really great," he said. "This is kind of a bummer that the last weekend we were really going full gas that this has to happen."
Fresno County Sheriff's deputies have been knocking on doors and telling people to leave, or be prepared to, since Friday night.
Sgt. Matt Hamilton says compliance has been good, though some are deciding to stay put.
An operation is also underway to evacuate a group of people participating in an off-highway vehicle poker run near Bald Mountain.
"So we have an off-highway vehicle team that we've called out to go back and assist forest service in evacuating the people that are back there for the poker run," Hamilton said.
Hamilton hopes everyone listens to their evacuation orders and warnings.
Because as hard as it may be to leave that Labor Day weekend getaway, it's always better to be safe than sorry.
"We don't want to have anybody stuck back and be seriously threatened by this incident," he said.
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