Siskiyou County, Cal. – Highway 97 remains closed tonight about 45 miles south of Klamath Falls due to the ‘Little Deer’ fire.
The fire hopped Highway 97 on Sunday, forcing a shutdown of the highway.
“There’s fairly active fire behavior along the highway.” Notes Mike Powell of the Klamath National Forest. “So that’s why the road is closed at this point. And it’s probably going to be closed intermittently for quite a while.”
Southbound traffic on 97 is being turned around at the inspection station south of Dorris.
Traffic is being sent back to Klamath Falls, and told to take highway 140 to Medford and I-5.
Inspector Carol Day of the California Department of Food and Ag says most driver aren’t happy to hear about the lengthy detour…
“Not very happy. But, they want to know when the road is going to be open, and as far as we know, we don’t know for sure.”
James Brown is only going as far as MacDoel…
“It’s bad out there. It’s just like a fog – we can’t hardly see the mountains or nothing from where I live, and they’re not very far away.”
The Little Deer fire was sparked by lightning last Thursday, and has grown to 4,700 acres, or about 7 and a half square miles.
The fire is 43% contained, and more than 400 firefighters and working to put out the blaze.
There are currently no evacuation orders in place due to the Little Deer fire.
About 600 thousand dollars has been spent so far in trying to put out the fire.
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