TUOLUMNE COUNTY, Calif. — The Canyon Fire in Tuolumne County continues to burn and while firefighters don’t know what caused it yet, they do know it started at a location off Buchanan Road late Thursday night.
It was a sleepless night for many residents out there like Nancy Gonzales.
“I got woken up in the middle of the night, around 12:30 a.m.,” she said.
She received the news that the fast-moving flames of the Canyon Fire were racing toward her home in the town of Tuolumne.
“One of the things I learned when I first moved here was you get a suitcase together with clothes, essentials, the things you need. We had just gotten that together,” she said.
“We’ve been afraid we were going to have one all summer, we’ve been really worried about it,” said evacuee Rick Donde.
His worry turned to reality as evacuation warnings turned into orders.
“Our biggest problem last night was we just didn’t know where the fire was. We had no clue where to go, which direction,” said Donde.
“We didn’t know where we were going and it was like, ‘just get out of here,’” said Sandra Valdez.
Valdez, her husband and dogs were able to make it out safely and with things looking better along the fire lines, hope is finally replacing chaos.
“The first department is on it. They’re good. I think they’ll have it under control, I’m feeling at peace with it,” she said.
Crews are still hard at work making sure no more hot spots can take off. It’s a job that can take hours and even days. People are asking to avoid the area in the meantime.
Earlier Friday, two evacuation shelters were open. Now it’s down to one at the Tuolumne County Senior Center in Sonora. Large animals can be taken to the Mother Lode Fairgrounds.
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