A fast-moving wildfire dubbed the Ross Fire broke out near Canyon Court in Murphys on Friday afternoon, prompting a mandatory evacuation order for part of the Calaveras County community before firefighters stopped its forward progress at roughly 20 acres within hours. The blaze crossed Rolling Meadow Drive as it spread, and authorities urged residents to avoid the area and keep roadways clear for fire engines and law enforcement vehicles.
According to CBS Sacramento, officials initially reported the fire had burned an estimated 15 acres before it grew further, and CAL FIRE's Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit described the fire as showing a moderate rate of spread with no containment reported at the time. The Calaveras County Sheriff's Office issued the mandatory evacuation order for Zone CCU-133, which stretches from the southeast side of Murphys to just east of Angels Camp. No structures were reported damaged, and a cause had not been determined.
Crews Stop Spread Within Hours, Lift All Warnings
The fire actually ignited around 3:09 p.m. PDT Friday near 3300 Canyon Court, according to CAL FIRE, and crews stopped its forward progress at 19.5 to 20 acres by 5:19 p.m. that same afternoon. Firefighters built hose lines around both flanks of the fire and dropped water and retardant from the air near Rolling Meadow Drive, per the agency's timeline. All evacuation warnings tied to the incident were lifted by 7:50 p.m. Friday, only a few hours after the blaze began.
As people fled the area, Calaveras County Health and Human Services partnered with the American Red Cross to open a pet-friendly emergency shelter at Bret Harte High School in Angels Camp, according to the same CBS Sacramento report. Angels Camp sits just west of Murphys along the Highway 4 corridor, making it a natural staging point for displaced residents from Zone CCU-133.
Second Fire In As Many Days For Calaveras County
The Ross Fire marked the second wildfire ignition in Calaveras County within roughly 24 hours. Just a day earlier, firefighters had responded to the Loma Fire near Mountain Ranch, which burned 19 acres and triggered its own mandatory evacuations before crews stopped its spread, the outlet reported. Hoodline previously covered that blaze in evacuations tied to Zone CCU-043.
Both fires followed weeks after the far larger Gann Fire near Valley Springs, which burned 10,339 acres, destroyed 48 structures and caused one civilian fatality before reaching full containment on August 12, according to CAL FIRE. That blaze was managed by the agency's Incident Management Team 6 and remains the most severe wildfire the county has seen so far this season.
A Region Built On Wildfire Risk
Murphys is an unincorporated Gold Country village of roughly 1,951 residents sitting at 2,172 feet elevation in the Sierra Nevada foothills, known for its Main Street tasting rooms and proximity to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, according to Citizen Portal. The town's popularity as a wine-country tourism draw sits uneasily alongside the county's wildfire exposure: an estimated 15,000 living units in Calaveras County are located in designated Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones, per the county's 2020 Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
That vulnerability is not theoretical. The September 2015 Butte Fire remains the most destructive wildfire in county history, burning 70,868 acres across Calaveras and Amador counties, destroying 965 structures including more than 500 homes in Calaveras County, and killing two people, according to historical accounts. CAL FIRE's Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit, headquartered in San Andreas, has managed state-responsibility wildland fire protection across Calaveras, Tuolumne, eastern Stanislaus and eastern San Joaquin counties ever since, coordinating with municipal and volunteer fire districts throughout the foothill region.
How Officials Coordinated The Evacuation
Calaveras County relies on the Genasys Protect platform for its pre-established evacuation zones, a system the Board of Supervisors adopted unanimously into the county's Emergency Operations Plan in October 2024. The zone-based system, which replaced older, less standardized evacuation descriptions, allowed officials to quickly designate Zone CCU-133 for the Ross Fire and communicate the mandatory order to residents on the southeast side of Murphys and east of Angels Camp.
CAL FIRE's Tuolumne-Calaveras Unit had already suspended all outdoor residential open burning across state-responsibility lands in the county effective June 15, a seasonal restriction triggered annually as Sierra foothill vegetation dries out during peak summer months, according to Central Calaveras Fire and Rescue. With the Ross and Loma fires both stopped at under 20 acres and no structures reported damaged, county officials avoided a repeat of the destruction seen earlier this month, though the causes of both recent fires remain undetermined.
