Fire crews from multiple agencies fully contained the four-acre fire that threatened structures on the Auburn side of the Foresthill Bridge at 4:20 p.m. Tuesday, said Daniel Berlant, Cal Fire public information officer.

“This whole canyon, once it gets racing in a canyon like this, it could take several days to stop it,” Berlant said. “Fortunately where we stopped it was right below these homes. It was a real good save.”

The fire that started just before 2 p.m. originated at the bottom of the American River Canyon and crawled up the hillside toward Auburn, headed for a neighborhood with dozens of homes, but crews were able to halt its progress and no evacuations had been ordered, Berlant said.

Of those in the neighborhood, only two buildings were immediately threatened by the fire, he said.

One firefighter was treated for heat exhaustion, Berlant said.

More than a dozen fire engines, a couple water tenders, three hand crews, two air tankers, a helicopter and a bulldozer had been dispatched to battle the blaze, Berlant said. Cal Fire, Placer County Fire, Auburn City Fire, Newcastle Fire, Placer Hills Fire and the U.S. Forest Service all responded to the scene.

“This is an incredibly steep hillside, so trying to get our firefighters down there to actually … build a containment line is very difficult,” he said. “That’s why we do so much work in here to actually clear it up.”

The blaze spread under the bridge, burning either side of the Auburn slope. The cause of the vegetation fire is under investigation.

“If we hadn’t been able to jump on it quickly this fire had a lot of potential to make its way all the way up the hillside to Auburn,” Berlant said. “Fortunately our station is less than a mile away, Auburn City Fire is less than a mile away, and we were able to bring engines out of Foresthill, so a lot of different agencies were able to get there quickly and that helped us, obviously.”

A spot fire broke out away from the main area of the blaze, but a U.S. Forest Service helicopter quickly attacked it and stopped it from spreading, Berlant said.

Work to reduce fuels on either side of the canyon had been performed recently, and this fire emphasizes to homeowners there how important it is to create defensible space, because a blaze naturally is going to spread up the hillside, he said.

“It’s a beautiful view, right? But they’ve got to make sure they’ve got the clearance, because the fire is going to race right up,” Berlant said. “And if you’ve got good clearance around it, it helps us stop the fire.”

The area near the bridge is a “hot spot” for fires, and a blaze two or three years ago burned 30 acres on the Foresthill side, Berlant said.

Foresthill Road traffic was stopped on either side of the bridge, and was expected to resume around 5:30 p.m. Traffic was also significantly backed up on Highway 49 near the confluence, Berlant said.

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