A wildfire that began Thursday morning in the Potter Valley area of eastern Mendocino County spread quickly in a remote area to over 1,000 acres by Friday morning.The Lucas Fire began Thursday around 9:18 am in an area of grass and oak trees near the Mendocino and Lake County line, northeast of Ukia h and northwest of Clear Lake, and three miles east of state Route 20. As the Mendocino Voice reported, the fire began at 10 acres, reached 40 acres by around 3 pm, and had grown to 200 acres by 3:30 pm. Just after 4 pm it was reportedly at around 400 acres and burning in remote, hard-to-access terrain.Cal Fire says the fire is 5% contained as of Friday morning, but it has spread to 1,099 acres, prompting evacuation orders for eight zones in Lake County, and evacuation warnings for another eight zones, as well as two zones in Mendocino County."Today temperatures and winds are expected to increase along with lowering humidity," Cal Fire said in a morning update. "Additional resources will be arriving to assist with this incident. All evacuations remain in place."The zones under evacuation orders are MNF-E016, MNF-E018, MNF-E019, UPP-E023, UPP-E025, UPP-E026, UPP-E027, and UPP-E030.Structures are immediately threatened in the vicinity of Bachelor Valley. Elsewhere in Northern California, the Steele Fire, which began Wednesday morning near the south end of Lake Berryessa in Napa County, is now 68% contained after burning just over 50 acres; the Plaskett Fire, which rapidly expanded last week in the Big Sur area, has reached 79% containment after burning just under 30,000 acres of remote wilderness. The Timber Fire, which began in early August in an area about 27 miles north of the Plaskett Fire in Los Padres National Forest, stands at 27% containment after burning over 25,000 acres, with the fire's northern and eastern flanks burning slowly through very steep, remote terrain that limits firefighting access.Highway 1 remains closed for about a 10-mile stretch through Big Sur as firefighting activity continues. ...read more read less