Forest fires flare near Wilson Cr.

Firefighters are shrouded in smoke as they work on the Wilson Fire on Saturday. The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

However, an approaching storm  had the same officials worried that the winds could spread the flames and the accompanying rain might not be enough to drown them.

The two blazes known as Branch 1 and Branch 2 of the Wilson Fire Complex haven’t caused any injuries or threatened structures, but stands of old growth redwoods on public land were threatened and younger trees on private land were destroyed.

Officials said Monday morning that firefighters had managed to contain the smaller fire, known as Branch 1, which burned  35 acres and singed the redwoods north of the primitive campground near the DeMartin section of the Coastal Trail.

Firefighters monitor a back-fire set to slow the progress of the Branch 2 fire. The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

Cal Fire Battalion Chief Jim Smith said things might have been different if firefighters hadn’t been hampered by Sunday fog that grounded three helicopters that were dumping saltwater on the flames Saturday.

The fog lifted Monday, allowing the helicopters to resume dropping water.

Branch 2 of the Wilson Fire Complex had scorched about 225 acres farther east along the Wilson Creek drainage and was burning timber on land owned by Green Diamond Resource Co, Smith said.

“We keep real close track when fires burn on Green Diamond land,”  company spokeswomen Jackie Deuschle said Monday afternoon. “We have some folks up there working with Cal Fire.”

Smith said the Branch 2 fire was 90 percent contained, and he expected it to be completely contained at 250 acres Monday evening, “barring high winds or any other disasters.”

The fires were large enough and required enough personnel that for the first time in years a fire camp was erected at the Del Norte County Fairgrounds.

According to Cal Fire’s Ken Davis, nearly 60 percent of the crews on the fire are California work camp inmates.

“It really is a great arrangement,” Davis said. “The public gets a lot of good work, and the guys get to feel a sense of accomplishment, a sense of worth that really helps their rehabilitation. It’s almost like they’re getting to feel worthwhile again.”

Tim DeVos of Cal Fire first spotted the flames Friday night. The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

“It feels great to be helping the firefighters, to be doing something useful,” Washington said while cooking lunch for fellow crew members at the fairgrounds.

Investigators believe both blazes started Friday night and were human-caused.

They were first spotted by Tim DeVos, administrative captain of the Alder Conservation Camp, an inmate firefighting operation in Klamath.

DeVos was driving home from the much-bigger Mill Creek Fire in Humboldt county when he “saw a glow up on the hill” on Wilson Creek Road off of U.S. Highway 101.

He called it in.

“So I drove up there a ways until I got to a locked gate,” DeVos said. “I couldn’t get around, so I got out, and as soon as I did I could see another glow. That was when I called the second one in,”

While access to Wilson Creek is blocked by a gate, “there are lots of ways you can get to Wilson Creek from Klamath,” Smith said.

A Cal Fire water tender truck was damaged Saturday after flames flared in front of it, Smith said.

“It was supporting a firefighting operation and the fire made a high-intensity run right toward them — they had to drive through the flames to get to a safe area,” he said.

Smith said Monday that the expected rain would help, but it really depends on how much the storm delivers.

“If we get an inch of rain than we have to re-engage,” Smith said. “If we get 4 inches, we don’t have to re-engage right away, but we will need to keep monitoring it.”

Another fire burned 2-3 acres at Dead Lake north of Crescent City on Saturday before it was contained, Smith said.