A crash on Highway 253 east of Boonville sparked a vegetation fire near Page Road on Thursday afternoon, triggering a search-and-rescue response for a driver whose vehicle went roughly 200 feet down an embankment and a two-way closure of the highway. The cause of both the crash and the fire remained under investigation as crews worked the scene into the evening.
According to Redheaded Blackbelt, an automatic crash notification came in around 3:59 p.m. involving a Toyota near mile marker 7.5, with the notification reporting possible serious injuries. Callers soon reported a two-vehicle crash, vehicles on fire, and one vehicle dragging something, while another caller described multiple fires starting along the road. The California Highway Patrol initially logged the incident as a hit-and-run before changing the classification to a collision, with an ambulance en route, the outlet reported.
Driver Reported Down a Steep Embankment
Scanner traffic cited in the report indicated a driver believed to be involved in the crash was found down an embankment near mile marker 10 around 4:09 p.m. Search and rescue crews were then requested around 4:22 p.m. to reach a vehicle and occupant approximately 200 feet below the road, per the same account. A Reach air ambulance was expected to arrive around 4:45 p.m., according to the report.
The fire that broke out alongside the crash — now being referred to as the Page Fire — started on the hillside near mile marker 8.25 and Page Road, burning on the south side of the highway. The California Highway Patrol reported the fire at about 1.5 acres around 4:14 p.m., and an incident commander later reported that forward progress had stopped at roughly 2 acres around 4:40 p.m., the station's report notes. No nearby structures appeared to be threatened by the fire.
Air Tankers and a Second Alarm
CHP requested air support, and CAL FIRE responded by sending two air tankers, an air attack plane and a helicopter, per the outlet's reporting. The incident also received a second alarm for additional resources, and Ukiah Volunteer Fire called back members to cover its station while crews responded to the scene, according to scanner traffic cited in the report.
Highway 253 was closed in both directions from Page Road to the 9010 block of Boonville-Ukiah Road, according to Caltrans QuickMap information relayed in the article, with no estimated reopening time given. The outlet characterized its account as preliminary, based on scanner traffic, the CHP incident log and Caltrans data, and both the crash cause and the fire's ignition cause remained under investigation.
A Stretch of Highway With a Fiery Recent History
Thursday's incident is the latest in a string of vegetation fires along Highway 253 this year. In September, four separate grassland fires broke out near the 1700 block of the highway with a combined estimated acreage of about 5 acres, and one barn was reported under immediate threat from what became known as the Boon Fire, Redheaded Blackbelt reported at the time. That fire prompted a closure of Highway 253 at the Highway 128 junction east to mile marker 5.
In June, the Palmer Fire burned along State Route 253 between Boonville and Soda Springs, growing from an estimated 5 acres to approximately 10 acres before forward progress was stopped, according to MendoLocal News. That blaze required air resources, a dozer and hand crews, illustrating the kind of multi-resource response fires along this corridor tend to draw.
The pattern isn't new to the area. A 2021 vegetation fire southwest of Ukiah along Boonville Road and Highway 253 grew to 200 acres and was 20 percent contained by Monday evening, according to CBS San Francisco. Rugged, steep terrain made that fire difficult for firefighters to access, though no structures were threatened and no fatalities were reported in that case.
