SANTA CRUZ COUNTY — A modest blaze Monday in the Santa Cruz Mountains east of Boulder Creek rattled the fire-scarred Bay Area, drawing outsized attention in the wake of the historically deadly Wine Country infernos.

Firefighters swiftly evacuated about 150 homes in the possible path of the Bear Fire, officials said, with Cal Fire divisional assistant chief Rob Sherman declaring firmly Tuesday morning that “everybody has been evacuated,” with no more than a handful of holdouts.

The weeklong series of fires centered around Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Yuba counties — killing more than 40 people, destroying thousands of homes and burning more than 200,000 acres — weighed heavily on the mind of 73-year-old Frank Sandt when he awoke to a neighbor pounding on his door at 5 a.m.

Sandt, who has lived in Boulder Creek for 50 years, grabbed his jacket and his medication and joined the fire exodus.

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“I watched what happened in Santa Rosa and said, ‘I’m not going to stick around,’ ” Sandt said.

As of Tuesday night, the Bear Fire had burned 271 acres and destroyed four structures but caused no casualties beyond five firefighters who suffered minor to moderate injuries traversing the steep terrain. The latest official containment level was 5 percent.

Close to 600 firefighters worked Tuesday night to keep the fire from breaching its eastern flank at Lost Valley Road and maintain the three-quarter-mile buffer between that and the nearest homes along Favre Ridge. Evacuations were expected to continue at least into Wednesday.

“We expect to be here through tomorrow night,” Cal Fire spokeswoman Angela Bernheisel said.

Sandt was joined by dozens who sought shelter at evacuation centers set up at Lakeside Elementary School in the outer reaches of Los Gatos and the Zayante fire station in Felton.

His sentiment was shared by many of the evacuees. Liz Celeste, 35, packed her car late Monday night and evacuated her Boulder Creek home at about 4 a.m. Tuesday with her husband, two young children and their dog.

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Her house is on the edge of the evacuation zone, but she said, “we felt better safe than sorry.”

More than 100 miles north, where the Tubbs, Pocket, Nuns, Oakmont, and Atlas fires burned, residents have returned to 13,956 homes as of Tuesday and 35,225 residents were deemed “re-populated.” A 200-person search team continued combing through Santa Rosa neighborhoods with police for 26 missing residents, and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s office was looking for 27.

Sheriff Rob Giordano said his deputies arrested 17 people in connection with various crimes in the fire zone, including one man on arson charges after he reportedly admitted to setting a small fire in Maxwell Park near Sonoma. The man is known to sleep in the park and set the blaze to “keep warm,” Giordano said.

The Cal Fire San Mateo-Santa Cruz unit leading the attack on the Bear Fire was similarly feeling the effects of those fires, particularly in terms of stretching their coverage.

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The unit still has personnel in the North Bay, Bernheisel said. But they sent all available resources to the fire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains and were bolstered by Cal Fire units and municipal fire departments from counties including Santa Cruz, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Monterey, San Benito and beyond.

“We staff up so that we are available,” Bernheisel said. “Even though we sent stuff up there, we had resources here ready for a fire to break out.”

Seemingly no corner of the Bay Area was spared from fire scares Tuesday: a pair of small vegetation fires shut down Highway 101 in Sausalito for nearly three hours, and a grass fire in Dublin burned at least 180 acres and prompted evacuations.

Tuesday, the massive human assembly fighting the Bear Fire was bolstered by assorted machinery on the ground and in the skies by air tankers and helicopters carrying either fire retardant or water from nearby reservoirs.

Tuesday’s weather in the Santa Cruz region was a boon for firefighters, particularly the light winds. But that also had a downside: fire smoke wasn’t dissipating adequately, limiting visibility and the efficiency of the air attack.

One firefighter broke his wrist when he tumbled 50 feet down a steep ravine and was airlifted for medical treatment, Bernheisel said.

A second firefighter — a prison inmate helping fight the blaze — was treated for smoke inhalation. Bernheisel said three other firefighters were evaluated for injuries that included cuts and sprains. All four of those firefighters went back to work on the fire lines. No civilian injuries have been reported.

The fire originated at a property in the 800 block Bear Creek Canyon Road around 10:30 p.m. Monday, but officials have not said what caused it.

The initial fire site is a downward hike from Bear Creek Road and situated at the end of the long dirt driveway, where Tuesday afternoon it led to a splayed hodgepodge of charred vehicles, a bulldozer, tires, garbage and burned-out appliances including a generator.

The blaze spread into the surrounding brush, and soon after homes were evacuated along Deer Creek Road, Rons Road, Dons Road, Lost Valley Road, Favre Ridge and Oak Ridge, as well as the community of Las Cumbres. The order covered a 4-mile diameter around the fire and was accompanied by assorted road closures.

The two evacuation centers drew between 30-40 people apiece. At Lakeside Elementary, Barbara Fishman left her home in the Las Cumbres neighborhood around 1 a.m. “when it became clear the fire wasn’t getting any smaller.”

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Las Cumbres resident Bernd Burfeindt evacuated about the same time and took his wife and daughter to a hotel in Sunnyvale because all the hotels in Los Gatos were fully booked.

Another evacuee, Pat Nyberg, was settling in for a long wait.

“It doesn’t look like we’re going home tonight,” she said.

Staff writers David DeBolt, Judy Peterson, Patrick May and Paul Rogers contributed to this report.