“We’ve got the ball, we’re on the move”, fire information officer Bob Poole said. “Now we can get ahead of it”. What’s being called the Blue Cut fire, because of its location, continues to threaten homes and structures.
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As of late Wednesday morning, the raging inferno was at 0 percent containment, according to Cal Fire. On Thursday, firefighters focused on defending Wrightwood, a small community of about 4,500 in the San Gabriel mountains.
Fire officials, who have described the fire’s intensity as highly unusual, expressed concern that weather conditions would keep the area dry, hot and windy.
Six firefighters were briefly trapped by flames during the fire’s early hours, when occupants of a home refused to leave and the crew stayed to protect them. “This is not the time to mess around”, San Bernardino County fire battalion chief Mark Peebles said. The fire has burned 56 square miles. The cause has not been announced. As of Thursday evening, the mandatory evacuation orders for residents in the areas west of I-15 to Baldy Mesa Road, south of Phelan Road to Whitehaven St. and Praire Trail, expired.
Other evacuation orders remained in place.
Authorities are urging people to evacuate from more than 34,000 homes, but fear that up to half of them have not heeded their advice, a US Forest Service spokeswoman said.
Daniel Martinez, 48, returned to his Oak Hills home to find it completely unscathed. “My wife is already inside crying tears of joy”. “Thankfully it’s repairable and not a structural issue”.
A San Bernardino County Fire Department firefighter watches a helitanker make a water drop on a wildfire, seen from Cajon Boulevard in Devore, Calif., Thursday, Aug. 18, 2016. Some are known to have burned along Highway 138.
On Wednesday afternoon, someone texted them a picture of their house.
“It’s very comforting to know the house is still there”, Katie Havens said. Top Cafe near Wrightwood.
In fact, everything still stood.
“They definitely saved the communities of Wrightwood and Lytle Creek”, Martinez said.
After the fire started, he said, his parking lot filled with upward of 100 cars.
“It burns that much quicker, that much hotter”, Collins said. “They saved everything”, he said.
The 15 Freeway, which was completely shut down Wednesday morning, was reopened to traffic in both directions on Thursday morning, Caltrans said.
The fire reached Main Street in Lower Lake, a town of about 1,200 about 90 miles north of San Francisco, on Sunday and burned the post office, a winery, a Habitat for Humanity office and several businesses as thick, black smoke loomed over the small downtown strip. An additional line, belonging to Union Pacific, was reported to have sustained significant damage to a bridge and will remain closed.
The fire has destroyed about a dozen homes since Tuesday, though no official numbers have been provided. Then the practice was credited with saving 15 to 20 buildings.
Also Thursday, teams are assessing damage to property.
“No joke, we were literally being chased by the fire”, said a tearful April Christy, sitting in a van with her mother Vi Delgado at an evacuation vehicle park in Fontana. An animal shelter and counseling services are available, he added.
Maricopa Fire Department spokesman Brad Pitassi from Arizona said numerous 1,600 firefighters called to battle the blaze as it raced over miles of bone-dry forest and grass lands would be sent home later Friday if the situation continued to improve. The 40-year-old construction worker appeared in court Wednesday, but he did not enter a plea. Air is constantly spinning-wind might blow along a mountainside and form eddies. Heat began to melt paint on their fire engine.
Some 700 firefighters are battling the blaze, according to InciWeb. An unknown number of homes were destroyed.
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Interstate 15 is a major route for travelers and truckers between Southern California’s population centers and Las Vegas.
