Evacuation orders are still in place for more than 80,000 residents.
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Highway 138, another major roadway in the area, was expected to remain closed until further notice, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The uncertainty “is an very bad feeling”, Gregory said as she lounged in a lawn chair under a tree outside an evacuation center.
Authorities could not immediately say how many homes had been destroyed, but they warned that the number will be large. “If we ask you to leave, you have to leave”, said Mike Wakoski, the incident commander and a battalion chief with the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
“I just want to know if I have a house”, she said.
As the fires continue to grow, firefighters are not as equipped as they would like to be; Years of drought in California have hindered local fire-fighting resources. Large, explosive fires have torn through drought-plagued or hard-to-reach areas across California this summer, including a stubborn blaze near the picturesque Big Sur coastline that has burned 113 square miles since late July and destroyed almost 60 homes.
The “Blue Cut Fire”, which erupted on Tuesday in the mountainous Cajon Pass northeast of Los Angeles, had exploded to cover 34,500 acres (nearly 14,000 hectares) by early Thursday, growing almost 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) overnight, fire officials said.
The Blue Cut fire is one of almost 30 major wildfires reported to have scorched some hundreds of square miles in 8 Western states this week, in the midst of a wildfire season stoked by prolonged drought and unusually hot weather, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
Meanwhile, a new fire broke out in rural Santa Barbara County, quickly surging to about 500 acres and prompting the evacuation of a pair of campgrounds. Pitassi said there still was a possibility of unexpected behavior from the fire since the landscape was so dry from five years of drought.
Greg Massialas, head of the U.S. Olympic men’s foil team that won a bronze medal in Rio, said in a statement Thursday that Porter was a critical member of the team, and it’s a shame he lost so much himself while assuring that the fencers prospered. A report issued last week concluded that faulty wiring in a hot tub ignited the fire.
Remember, when traveling in fire danger zones take extreme care, lives and property depend on it.
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Residents in Lower Lake and surrounding communities are still recovering from California’s third-most-destructive wildfire past year, which burned 120 square miles and cost more than $1.5 billion in damages. It was also the costliest on record with $2.1 billion spent to fight fires from Alaska to Florida. Decades of aggressively knocking down small fires also have led to the buildup of flammable fuel. The 6-square-mile blaze was 50 percent contained after destroying 268 structures, including 175 homes and eight businesses, in the working-class community of Lower Lake over the weekend.
