Share

California wildfire evacuees allowed to return home

Crews were trying to get some control of the fire, one of three causing evacuations and destroying buildings in the Spokane area.

Advertisement

About 82,000 people were ordered to leave their properties Tuesday when the fire broke out 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

The County of San Bernardino on Friday opened a Local Assistance Center at the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds in Victorville for families displaced by the Blue Cut fire.

Lytle Creek Road at Glen Helen Parkway.

“Without a federal declaration, people who lost property in the fire will have to rely on insurance, fundraising, and whatever existing services for which they might be eligible”, county spokesman David Wert said via email Sunday.

Chambers said the closure allowed fire crews to set up firefighting equipment to protect the hilltop estate.

More people returned to their homes Friday as firefighters made significant progress against a huge wildfire burning in Southern California’s San Bernardino National Forest, but that was tempered by the announcement that at least 96 homes and 213 outbuildings were destroyed.

Officials said the 6-square-mile fire in Lower Lake was 95 percent contained. Fire officials called the blaze “moderately active” and said it wasn’t significantly growing.

Dillion said firefighters were going property-to-property to put out any lingering flames and hot spots.

“You don’t want somebody to come back to a neighbourhood where a fire could suddenly flare up on the property next door from something still smouldering”, Mr Dillon said. She was running an errand Tuesday when the fire charged through her neighborhood.

“I’m actually feeling numb”, said Santore, who fled with her husband and granddaughter to an evacuation center. She tried to rush home to rescue the family’s four dogs, six cats and hamster but was blocked by closed roads.

A prolonged drought has transformed swathes of California into tinderboxes, ready to ignite.

The Hearst Castle in central California remains closed Sunday as a result of a wildfire burning in San Luis Obispo County. State Parks supervising ranger Robert Chambers tells CBS 5 he can’t recall any other time that a fire forced the closure of Hearst Castle, saying, “A fire has never come this close before”.

The Chimney Fire had burned almost 20,000 acres (8,094 hectares) and 46 structures and firefighters have built containment lines around 35 percent of it, officials said.

Workers at the castle have spent several days cutting brush and putting in fire lines to create a defensible space around the castle, he added, and that a contingency plan is in place to move the large art collection belonging to media magnate William Randolph Hearst.

In the southern Sierra Nevada, another blaze in Sequoia National Forest forced the evacuation of several tiny hamlets.

In rural Santa Barbara County, an 85-square-kilometre wildfire that forced the evacuation of two campgrounds was 20 per cent contained.

A month-long blaze burning near California’s scenic Big Sur is not expected to be fully contained until the end of September.

Officials with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the 19,000-acre Rey Fire in southern California is just 10 per cent contained.

Advertisement

Cal Fire says the fire has destroyed 57 homes and charred 133 square miles.

More wildfire evacuation orders lifted in Southern California