Wildfires have ripped through California in the past, but recent fires have grown stronger and hotter. Clouds of smoke billowed to Las Vegas, 200 miles away.
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Fire crews are fighting the flames on the ground and in the air, trying to stop the fire-fueled by intense winds from ripping through any more dry brush. And lives also include firefighters’ lives.
By Wednesday evening, a day after it ignited in San Bernardino County brush left bone dry by years of drought, the so-called Blue Cut Fire had blackened more than 25,000 acres in San Bernardino County and was four percent contained, firefighters said, revising an earlier estimate of more than 30,000 acres.
Firefighters continue to try to defend communities including Wrightwood and Lytle Creek in the rugged San Gabriel Mountains above Cajon Pass.
From the highway between Wrightwood and Lytle Creek, a thick cloud of smoke could be seen blanketing the entire valley. Evacuation orders were given, but some residents chose to watch and wait. She was led by a sheriffs patrol auto in front while a California Highway Patrol vehicle trailed behind and a truck filled with firefighters battled flames alongside her.
Highway 138 to Lone Pine Canyon remains closed. “It hit with an intensity that we hadn’t seen before”, he added.
About 600 miles (970 km) to the northwest, the so-called Clayton Fire was 50 percent contained after charring almost 4,000 acres in and around the community of Lower Lake and destroying 286 homes and other structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. That fire destroyed 175 homes and other structures in the working-class community.
“I’m trying to remain optimistic”, Brady said as he sat outside a shelter for evacuees in Fontana. And we can’t go and stand in front of that 80-foot wall of fire.
“I would say we’re going to see them all around in the United States”, Guyette said.
Six firefighters were entrapped by the raging wildfire on Tuesday afternoon while defending homes and assisting with evacuations.
Television crew captured the hellish conditions along the area of the fire.
Among equipment already deployed were 152 fire engines, eight air tankers plus two Very Large Air Tankers (VLATs), and eight helicopters, including night-flying helicopters.
The inferno has claimed one high-profile victim so far: the Summit Inn, an old-fashioned diner on the world-famous Route 66 that counted celebrities Elvis Presley and Clint Eastwood among its clientele. The wildfire that began as a small midmorning patch of flame next to Interstate 15 in the Cajon Pass had by Tuesday’s end turned into a 28-square-mile monster that burned an untold number of homes. “When those officers ask you to leave, we would ask that you do leave and not shelter in place”, McMahon said.
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“We have our important things and we are insured”, she said. “Would you leave your home?”
