DEL NORTE COUNTY, Calif. – The ‘Smith River Complex Fire’ in Del Norte County is causing havoc for travelers wanting to use Highway 199.
Photos show the debris and how close the fires are to the highway.
Highway 199 is closed from Pioneer Road in Gasquet to Oregon Mountain Road at the Oregon border.
“We’re coordinating with CalTrans and our crews are helping by turning traffic around at the agriculture inspection station,” ODOT spokesperson Julie Denney said. “We also have some messaging out there to help people remember that the highway is closed.”
CalTrans District 1 is calling it a hard closure, meaning no one, not even emergency vehicles can use the road.
Del Norte County Emergency Services said they expect the highway to open by the middle of next week.
However, CalTrans is not sure when it will re-open.
Cochrane: “We cannot predict wildfires, we just absolutely cannot,” CalTrans spokesperson Myles Cochrane said. “We are sticking to the line that there is no estimated time of re-opening at this point. It’s just too early to say.”
Clean up on the highway could take some time, before it’s safe to re-open.
“We have to get in there and remove rocks, remove debris, remove trees, you have to make sure the highway is still stable,” Cochrane said. “Millions of dollars in emergency repairs typically whenever we have a wildfire recovering like this.”
Drivers are being asked to use alternate routes.
Caltrans said if you’re coming from the coast, using Highway 101, to State Route 299, connecting all the way to Interstate 5, will take you to Redding, Yreka and up to southern Oregon.
In Oregon, ODOT said cutting over to the Oregon coast is the best route to use.
“Highway 42 and Highway 38 in Douglas County, there aren’t a lot of really routes across the mountains so we want people to stay off of forest service roads and onto the highways that are made for traveling,” Denny said.
To keep up with the latest on closures, it’s best to use ‘QuickMap‘ in California and ‘Trip Check‘ in Oregon.
Caltrans said to check their social media pages for the latest on when Highway 199 will re-open.
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