The Bull Fire remains at 1,529 acres and is 44% contained. All evacuations have been lifted.
On the Verdi side, the fire is no longer active. But firefighting efforts continue.
“The fire is still there. There's still a lot of firefighters fighting it,” says Chris Buckley, the Public Information Officer for the Bull Fire.
Over 200 personnel remain committed to the fire fight. Fire crews say pockets of heat are still present in heavy fuels and rough terrain within the burn area.
Investigators say the Bull Fire is human-caused.
Joe Serpa noticed the fire on Saturday morning.
“I saw it when I was coming home from the gym, at about 11:00 on Saturday,” says the 25 year Verdi resident. “It was just a little patch up on the hill, and then that kind of got out of control."
Serpa says that with the winds blowing the fire to the north and east, he wasn't concerned in Verdi. But a miscommunication scared other people.
“It had everybody in Verdi panicking,” says Bud Mosconi, an 82 year resident. “We're getting phone calls from out of state; people wonder if they can help. ‘You want to move in? What’s going on?’”
Mosconi says someone on social media misreported evacuations in Verdi. 3,000 people in town were put on warning at one point, but fire officials say only one residence was ever under an order to evacuate.
Fire crews tell us they've already encountered people interfering with the fire fight. On Sunday, they say someone flew a drone over the burn area.
“There's a TFR up, a temporary flight restriction,” Buckley says. “Planes can't even fly in this area right now. And you shouldn't be flying drones anywhere near a wildfire."
"We've got helicopters running, and they're trying to suppress the fire. They don't need to be looking at the drones,” says Serpa.
And that's not all.
A viewer sent us video on Sunday of someone who rode an ATV into the fire area and narrowly missed being dumped on by an airdrop. Mosconi says he's seen ATVs continue to enter fire areas.
“It’s terrible. I mean, when both [the Hawk and Bull] fires started, you just see them come pouring out of the mountains,” he says.
The forest area where the Bull Fire is burning remains closed from the Hawk Fire. Yet people still head there to get a closer look.
“That's dangerous for the public, and it's dangerous for our firefighters,” Buckley says, “and our crews are up there. So please, please, please stay away from the area."
