Update: Firefighter Injured Working The Old Fire

Update at 4:50 p.m.: Forest Fire officials report containment on the Old Fire has grown to 70 percent with the acreage remain at 150. Additionally, the expected full containment date has been pushed up two days to Sunday, September 18. For details on the injured firefighter please read below.

Original post at 3:55 p.m.: Stanislaus National Forest, CA — The Old Fire’s size and containment is holding steady but one firefighter was hurt battling the blaze Thursday morning.

The fire remains at 150 acres with 50 percent containment and 287 firefighters on the job. Regarding the injury Forest Service spokesperson Clare Long discloses, “It is a soft tissue injury. It is not life threatening. He was out on the fire line…walking through the vegetation and sustained this minor injury.”

Long reports crews are pretty confident that they have a good handle on getting hose line around the perimeter of the fire, however, she indicates, “There is a lot of spot fire happening. Some of them are actually going a quarter mile to a half mile out. We have three hot shot crews still out there trying to make sure we catch all these spot fires before they start to growing into anything that we really need to be concerned about.”

With the temperatures dropping in the evening, the overnight plan of attack is to make progress on the fuels inside the fire’s perimeter while patrolling around the outside looking for the hot spots and working on the containment line.

Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the blaze. Forest fire officials expect full containment by next Tuesday, September 20.