From Roger at Walker Fire:

We wanted to send an update on the Crooks Fire outside of the Facebook
posts we’ve put up all throughout the incident. You can go to this page
without being a Facebook member, as we understand it, to see all the
content. https://www.facebook.com/walkerfiredept/

The fire started on Monday and essentially exploded in just a couple of
hours, fairly atypical fire behavior for mid-April. On Tuesday, the
community was of course evacuated as things were looking pretty grim, the
wind was “horrible” as one fire official told us. Wednesday was a very
productive day for fire operations. With all the fires over the years,
we’ve never seen so many aircraft in the sky here and the work was very
effective, but uncertainty still reigned.

Walker Fire personnel started structure prep on Tuesday. Outside resources
started coming in for more structure prep with more and more resources
coming each successive day. On Thursday, we had a huge flow of outside
resources coming into Walker to help with structure protection and even
more on Friday.

Thursday night winds were again horrible but luckily the work done by hand
crews, air operations and dozer operators was effective enough to prevent
further spreading despite the wind. Friday of course was very cold, with
just a little bit of precipitation. The precip was probably a little less
important than the higher humidity for the day that came with it.

Although there is now a lot less fire activity, the danger/risks are still
present. A good way to think about it for now is that the list of things
that would have to go wrong at this point is quite long. It is possible
things go wrong but the probability of that is decreasing. YCSO has given
no indication though of when the evacuation order will be lifted.

We owe huge thanks to Costco. Clyde McKay and Diana and Mark Herrin worked
with Costco to coordinate a very generous donation of supplies. We also owe
a huge thank you to Walker Wifi. I can’t imagine trying to engage one of
these incidents without having the ability to use our cell phones. The flow
of phone calls and text messages is constant.

Most importantly I want to thank all of the firefighters who gave extensive
time to a very demanding fire. The group worked very hard, had great
attitudes and while the circumstance has been very challenging, we had a
lot of fun working with each other.

Thank you,
Roger Nusbaum
Fire Chief