Cal Fire May Have Located Spot Where Valley Fire Started
LAKE COUNTY (KPIX 5) -- Investigators think a remote area surrounded by caution tape in the community of Cobb Mountain may be the spot where the massive Valley Fire started last Saturday. KPIX 5's John Ramos went up to the area, which remains closed to the public.
Cobb Mountain is not the same place anymore. Once known for vacation cabins and small resorts, Cobb is now a silent display of nature's most random devastation.
Work crews are everywhere on the main road and as you climb higher the mountain crests give a disturbing view of the size of the blaze.
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There were warnings, such as a sign that read "Mowing…can cause a wildland fire." But really, who could have imagined this?
Finally, on a narrow street called High Valley Road something unusual, caution tape. There is so much damage up here that no one has bothered to put tape up. But there it is on a nondescript hillside between two houses, and the Cal Fire surveyors are the giveaway, this is the place the fire started.
Officials say they don't know how it got started, only that it began around 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon. There is a downed power line but it's hard to tell if it's the cause, or a casualty of the blaze.
The house at the top of the road is gone and so is its neighbor's. But it was from here that the inferno climbed over the hill and headed down to Middletown, with nothing but fuel as far as the eye can see.
