Five UC Davis firefighters left campus Monday (Aug. 8) to fight a series of wildfires northeast of Eureka sparked by lightning.

The UC Davis crew, part of a Yolo County strike team, is battling the Six Rivers Lightning Complex fire, which began Friday (Aug. 5) as a dozen blazes on the Six Rivers National Forest.

Firefighters have reduced the number of fires to eight, but the blaze overall had grown to 8,975 acres with no containment as of this morning (Aug. 9), according to the U.S. Forest Service.

UC Davis Fire Capt. Steve Dunn leads the Yolo County strike team, which also includes, aboard UC Davis’ Brush Truck 34: Capt. Paul Rush; Derek Carthy, engineer; and Mike Cullen and Meggie Elledge, firefighters.