Residents in Lower Lake and surrounding communities are still recovering from California’s third-most-destructive wildfire previous year, which burned 120 square miles and cost more than $1.5 billion in damages.
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The fire erupted Tuesday morning in Cajon Pass, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, and spread rapidly. For homeowners who have evacuated there is no certainty to the future. Two suffered minor injuries but later returned to the fire line. “But the fire went around me”.
“We were fully engulfed in smoke”, firefighter Cody Anderson told KCBS-TV, as rpeorted by the AP. Bay Area’s Cheryl Hurd gets a fireifghter’s perspective on a ride-along with a San Bernardino County fire captain and talks with one resident anxious about looters. “This fire is still raging out of control”.
Mailboxes remain near where houses once stood Thursday, Aug 18, 2016, in Phelan, Calif. Scenes of destruction were everywhere Thursday after a huge wildfire sped through mountains and high desert 60 miles east of Los Angeles so swiftly that it took seasoned firefighters off guard.
Written by CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press, and CHRISTINE ARMARIO, Associated Press.
The cause of the fire was under investigation.
“Structures are known to have been damaged or destroyed but can not now be assessed due to the extreme fire behavior and growth”, the U.S. Forest Service reports on InciWeb. Fontana. There is another at Sultana High School, 17311 Sultana, Hesperia.
Fire crews in Southern California are making some progress in battling the menacing Blue Cut fire.
Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin said late Monday that Damin Pashilk, a resident of nearby Clearlake, had been arrested and booked on multiple counts of arson in connection with the Clayton fire and other fires in the area during the a year ago.
“Mr. Pashilk committed a horrific crime and we will seek prosecution to the fullest extent of the law”. Mike McGuire about last year’s wildfire. With its explosive behavior, fire managers are giving no indication when evacuees will be safe to return home to assess damages.
Cal Fire reported on Wednesday morning that the Clayton fire has consumed just under 4,000 acres and is now 40 percent contained.
Red flag conditions remain in effect for San Bernardino County until 9 p.m. Thursday, according to the National Weather Service. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to go back and have neighbors who don’t have homes anymore”.
The Blue Cut fire, named after a narrow gorge where it ignited about 75 miles (120 km) northeast of Los Angeles on Tuesday in an area called the Cajon Pass, has burned more than 37,000 acres (15,000 hectares) and destroyed 105 homes and 213 outbuildings, said fire information officer Mike Lopez.
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Some 82,000 residents were under evacuation orders at the height of the fire. Reports say that this could be very hard to determine, since it could depend on wind conditions, which seem to shift and change in the area.
