The hill on which the historic ghost town of New Idria rests was
charred black after a Wednesday night fire ravaged through 24 acres
destroying 13 abandoned buildings. The cause of the fire remains
under investigation.
The hill on which the historic ghost town of New Idria rests was charred black after a Wednesday night fire ravaged through 24 acres destroying 13 abandoned buildings.
The former mercury mine was found in 1854 and during its heyday it was considered one of the main sources of income for the county, according to Ray Iddings of Three Rocks Research. But the mine was closed in 1972 because of the cost of mining mercury and afterward became an abandoned ghost town.
With no preservation effort from the county, the town slowly dwindled away – until the Wednesday night fire, the cause of which remains unknown.
Here is video from the scene. The story continues below it.
The fire burned through all of the buildings, except for the schoolhouse on top of the hill, on the north side of New Idria Road, which divides the town in half, Calfire Battalion Chief Sam Walker. No buildings on the south side were damaged.
Calfire received notice of the fire at 8 a.m. Thursday and had it fully controlled by 5 p.m. But the fire had already caused vast damage to the area.
One firefighter was hurt from inhaling too much smoke while battling the fire, Walker said.
The New Idria Post Office was among other households that were burned down in the fire, former resident Shirley Ward said. Ward’s husband, Mark, was the last mining supervisor before the mine closed.
Ward was visiting the area Friday, from Madera, after hearing of the fire. In the back of her car, Ward carried a binder full of old pictures and memories of the area.
“I saw one of the places were we lived gone – it’s just very sad,” she said. “It’s upsetting.”
Black ash and rubble surrounded the areas where buildings once stood, and the dust from the buildings still hovered in the air. Only the skeletons of some structures remained.
The town’s sign that welcomes its visitors was slightly shaded black and the hill it’s placed on showed effects of the fire. Up the hill a little more, a furnace stood by itself amongst the rubble of a building. A truck was half burned right next to it.
The town was in two halves. On one side of the dirt road, the buildings stood only showing signs of age – the other was black and full of ash and rubble.
A small collection of firefighters huddled in the area in case the fire started up again. Every once and a while, they would spray down the ash with water to keep it cool.
The firefighters spent the rest of the day there, making sure the fire had stopped, Walker said. Calfire had three engines on site.
Despite Calfire still investigating the cause of the fire, Ward believed someone started it.
“This did not happen on its own – that is a known fact,” she said. “They’ll have to prove it. There was no lightning storms or anything.”
But the damage wasn’t completely unexpected – a lot of the former residents thought it would eventually happen, including Mary Bruce.
There was a lot of vandalism in recent years and the former residents were all worried for the worst, she said.
“I just had a feeling that something was going to eventually happen – it just kept on getting worse,” Bruce said.
Bruce lived in the mining town for most of her life – going to school and getting married there.
“It’s just heartbreaking to see this place like this,” she said. “This is home.”
