Steve,
I just talked to the forest service and some of the fires about 20 miles from Redding that they thought they had contained have jumped the lines and they have no idea of when they may get them under control. Also one is starting down the canyons toward the lake and that underbrush is so bad that if it gets to that canyon all they can do is back off and let it go until it gets to the top of a mountain where they can try to stop it. Once it becomes a crown fire, it is very hard to contain. I believe they told me there were 1200 lightning strikes during Saturday's storm. The smoke and haze seems to be getting worse as the day goes by.
Jamo answered you with a very good explanation. They tried to clear out the dead brush and log some old trees here a couple of years back and the tree huggers had a fit and got it stopped.
Edit to add: Here is a link to the local paper where you can read about all the fires and they have a link to the map showing them.
http://recordsearchlight.com/
Edit: This will change daily if anyone is interested.
Ron
