I-80 In CA EB/WB CLOSED Due To Fire

Headed out from getting my load at Lodi, CA early this afternoon. Got going up the mountain, when a green forest service fire truck went up the road with his lights on. A little bit later a couple of CHP went up the road with lights going and running 85 mph. My cascadia doesn't have an external antenna for my CB, so it doesn't really work very good at all... and I didn't hear anybody talking. Then I came around a bend and traffic was stopped! By that time I could see dark smoke.

1st indication of a new fire

1st Plane

2d Plane dropping retardant

Near Gold Run exit 143

Getting bigger

CHP turned us around at Gold Run and many guys parked in the emergency lane. Fortunately my dispatcher said that Safety and the Load Planner was finding us a detour. By the time I got headed west, I was given the alternate route.

Alternate Route

That 53 MI took me 2.25 hours! There were several signs on CA 174 that said trucks over 30 ft from kingpin to axle was not recommended. I'm going to have to see how long I am with this 40 ft trailer because that road was narrow and through the mountains had no pavement beyond the white line and there were a number places where I couldn't swing wide due to oncoming traffic and I came close to hitting the rock walls!

East of Nevada City

Wish I hadn't run out of hours, because I parked in Soda Springs for the night and the smoke is thick here!!

It is 2015 CA time and according to Google Maps, I-80 is still closed both directions.

Laura

The winds that picked up yesterday made it much worse. Michael passed through westbound Sunday afternoon and had checked with me if I had heard any updates but the road was still fine but I told him air quality was very bad so he made sure to take his break before heading over Donner.

Michael often parks at Gold Run where the air quality was in the 700s per PurpleAir, looks a bit better right now because of the gusty winds. PurpleAir

Yikes, that area in particular is really dicey to get stuck/turned around in in a truck. I had a similar experience last year, except it was a wreck (big rig) that had the 80 all closed up and like you they were turning trucks and cars away…

Be safe out there, this has been a very dry season in Oregon/CA/WA. At least in the PNW the forecast calls for rain and we had some yesterday, hopefully CA and NV get some to provide needed releif

I would have driven past the HOS. A weather emergency or Act of God that wasn't planned would be an acceptable reason, plus the danger of being in the vicinity of an active forest fire. I would have been rolling until I was out of the threat perimeter.

I would have driven past the HOS. A weather emergency or Act of God that wasn't planned would be an acceptable reason, plus the danger of being in the vicinity of an active forest fire. I would have been rolling until I was out of the threat perimeter.

I had already gone 28 minutes over my 70 HOS and was 5 mi past the shut down on the east side of the fire. There's a little smoke in the air when I walked Monty but it wasn't bad. Just cold out here! Even Monty hurried up and peed, shivering all the while

According to Google Maps a small section of westbound is still closed, but eastbound looks to be open.

Laura

West of Reno

Sparks NV

The smoke was so thick going across 80 in Nevada that I didn't see the mountains at Battle Mountain and just a little bit of them around Winnemucca.

My eyes are bothering me.

Laura

Based on PurpleAir now, it looks like by the time you get to Elko it's only moderately bad (AQI of 96, problem for sensitive groups) and by the time you get to West Wendover air quality is good. Michael stops all along there frequently but this time he is head back from SoCal via 15 and in Bunkerville for the night. Hope you get to a good spot yourself. We're fortunate here in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as those winds that are blowing all the smoke back east are bring us nice air and cooler temperatures. Crazy, last week we had one da of 118.9F (highest I know of here) and nighttime lows of about 70F and this morning we were down to 58F. I'm hoping this cooler weather helps the firefighters get control of the Mosquito fire.

I'm not a big Twitter user but have found it is quite useful for getting updated information on events like this. (TT says link is invalid so copy/paste) https://twitter.com/search?q=mosquito%20fire&src=typeahead_click

I'm not a big Twitter user but have found it is quite useful for getting updated information on events like this. (TT says link is invalid so copy/paste) https://twitter.com/search?q=mosquito%20fire&src=typeahead_click

Remind me; I'll teach you how to make that work !!

The smoke was so thick going across 80 in Nevada that I didn't see the mountains at Battle Mountain and just a little bit of them around Winnemucca.

My eyes are bothering me.

Laura

Good LORD, woman!! Be safe out there. I agree w/Pack. You should've kept driving, farther out of all that mess.

Be safe out there, y'all.

~ Anne ~

A significant amount of rain has fallen over the burn area over the past two days. Air quality is greatly improved and most of the evacuation orders have been cancelled We got only a tiny amount of rain at our farm but many areas got very good amounts and this is much earlier than normal so this is a great blessing. We had extremely hot weather less than two weeks ago and now cool wet weather, a greater change than I recall ever seeing. Mostly mild to moderate temperatures in the forecast. The only problems I saw reported today were some mudslides in burn areas but nothing affecting I-80.