A wind-whipped wildfire roared through a Northern California town threatened by a devastating blaze a year ago, wiping out more than 100 homes and businesses and forcing thousands of people to flee, authorities said Monday. About 82,500 people from some 34,500 homes were under mandatory evacuation orders, San Bernardino County fire spokesman Eric Sherwin said.
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Two firefighters were slightly injured by the wildfire, which around 700 fire personnel are battling, according to Inciweb.
A number of mountain communities including Wrightwood, a town of 4,500 residents famous for its ski slopes, have been severely effected by the fire that also shut down a portion of Interstate 15, the main highway between southern California and Las Vegas, The Associated Press reported.
At one point six firefighters became trapped by the blaze while protecting homes and helping with evacuations in the Swarthout Canyon area west of Cajon Pass, the department said.
The blaze, the cause of which is under investigation, is the latest in a series of wildfires that have blackened almost 121,400 hectares of the drought-parched US West.
Officials said least a dozen buildings have been burned, including homes and an historic diner called the Summit Inn. Two brush fires have also erupted in Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. It has destroyed 12 structures and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate.
San Bernardino County Fire Department Battalion Chief Mark Peebles says it’s very concerning and, in his words, “This is not the time to mess around”.
The authorities announced on Tuesday that Damin Pashilk, 40, was facing 17 counts of arson and was suspected of involvement in numerous other fires in the Lake County area over the past year.
Pashilk was trained as an inmate firefighter while serving a five-year sentence from 2002 to 2007 for drug possession and firearm charges at the California Correctional Center in Susanville, Calif., according to Vicky Waters, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. But they did not have enough evidence to make an arrest until the weekend blaze ripped through Lower Lake. Cancilla still doesn’t know the fate of his own home and spoke at a center for evacuees set up at a high school.
“A lot of people want to hang him high”, his wife, Jennie, said.
The fire, which was started by an illegal campfire on July 22, has burned more than 118 square miles, destroyed 57 homes and led to the death of a man in a bulldozer accident. Pashilk is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday. Jerry Brown. As of 7:30 p.m., the fire was zero percent contained.
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Fire crews gained some significant ground on a massive Northern California wildfire that has destroyed 175 homes, businesses and other structures and charred almost 7 square miles.
