Firefighters faced searing temperatures and steep terrain on Thursday as they toiled to contain a fast-moving Southern California wildfire that has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes.
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A blaze scorching sections of the Angeles National Forest, in southern California, two huge infernos in the central part of the state and another fire further north have displaced entire towns.
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.
Michael Eberle, a resident of the affected area, said his family packed everything they needed to survive outside of the house, including a folder of important papers in preparation for their evacuation. “The rate of travel is extremely fast”, he said.
According to the incident report for the fire, an unknown number of homes or structures have been damaged, and a staff photographer for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin captured images of homes burning near Highway 138.
Scorched cars and trailers burned by the Blue Cut fire line a residential street in Phelan, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 19, 2016.
Despite the dangers wreaked by the blaze many people have defied evacuation orders and have opted to stay put in their homes for the time being.
Firefighters are again on the firelines Friday morning, bringing the Blue Cut fire containment up to 26 percent.
Many homes have burned, but Sherwin says there are still no specific figures on how many.
It was “a unsafe combination of hot weather, bone-dry conditions and breezy winds” that allowed these fires to advance and spread, reports The Washington Post. No deaths have been reported in the latest fire, but crews assessing property damage were using cadaver dogs during searches.
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.
Travel was returning to normal Thursday in the pass – a major corridor for trucking, rail and commuter traffic – after Interstate 15 was fully reopened.
San Bernardino County fire officials could only confirm that dozens of structures had burned, and that big numbers are likely.
Five years of drought have turned the state’s wildlands into a tinder box, with eight fires now burning from Shasta County in the far north to Camp Pendleton just north of San Diego. The high fire potential in California will continue during the season’s peak this month and through November, perhaps even until the first snowfall.
Boyd had a stern warning for those who chose not to heed evacuation orders.
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Elsewhere, the fire’s growth was limited because flames had reduced the land to a moonscape.
