These factors combined with other historical trends – climate change making rain less frequent and more people living in the area and suppressing natural wildfires – produced the ideal storm for a raging wildfire, said Richard Guyette, who has studied wildfires for almost 40 years at the University of Missouri.
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The deployment of Arizona resources to fight California wildfires is about average for this time of year despite the huge size of this particular fire, he said.
At a dawn briefing, half the firefighters raised their hands when an official asked how many had just come from an earlier blaze in Northern California, part of a siege of infernos up and down the state this year.
The blaze first ignited on Tuesday in a drought-ravaged mountain pass and a day later it had spread across almost 47 square miles (12,200 hectares).
The fire erupted in a landscape ready to burn after years of drought and amid hot, dry and windy weather – conditions not expected to begin easing until late Thursday or Friday. “This is a very risky place to be”.
The fire closed multiple roads, including a major interstate highway linking Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The wildfire poses “imminent threat to public safety, rail traffic and structures”, according to the website, which said 82,640 people fell under an evacuation warning.
From the highway between Wrightwood and Lytle Creek, a thick cloud of smoke could be seen blanketing the entire valley.
“The fire is moving very fast straight through Highway 138, it is still growing”.
Justin Jacobs, a spokesman for Union Pacific, said the railroad’s primary focus has been on assisting U.S. Forest Service and local fire departments during the emergency.
Amid desperate efforts to ensure evacuations and control the fire there was no official tally of property damage, but authorities spoke of dozens of homes destroyed.
Various news outlets report that this wildfire caused the mandatory evacuation of 85,000 people and has been powerfully hard to contain.
“I try to tell people that there is nothing in your home that is worth your life”.
The state’s “relationship between fire and climate is the most unreliable”, he said.
Fire officials also said the wildfire was 4 percent contained Wednesday evening.
Before the Blue Cut Fire, 8,000 firefighters had already been battling eight large wildfires across the state. There was little left than the sign, hanging above the smoldering ashes.
Two firefighters were slightly injured after being surrounded by flames. They were treated at a hospital and released, and were back on the line fighting the blaze, Inciweb said. Wrightwood is in an incorporated area of San Bernardino County near the Mountain High ski resort.
It was rare to have so many people evacuated, Tolmachoff said.
The wildfire started on Tuesday in a part of the state left bone dry by five years of drought, and within a day it had spread across almost 47 square miles.
Strong seasonal gusts known as the Santa Ana winds complete the ideal conditions for wildfires.
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It’s all because of a unsafe wild fire also now called “blue fire” was first detected at 10:38 on Tuesday on Highway 138, west of Interstate 15 between Lone Pine Canyon Road and Hess Road, San Bernardino County.
