Firefighters were able to protect those mountain communities as well as the West Cajon Valley, San Bernardino County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig said in a tweet Thursday. “You just gotta get back on your feet.”PHOTOS: Wildfire burns San Bernardino National Forest hillsides Crews in the fire zone on Wednesday are expected to face temperatures in the 90s, winds of 30-40 miles per hour and humidity of 3-10 percent”.
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Firefighters in the western US state of California have made some progress containing a wildfire that has burned more than 12,000 hectares since Tuesday, but authorities warned that while they do not know how many homes have been destroyed, the number will be large. “You can always get those back”.
Moments after first smelling the smoke, she said the flames were suddenly surrounding them.
“Right now we are seeing very, very strong winds that are just fanning this fire”, Cal Fire public information officer Daniel Berlant said at a briefing Wednesday.
The so-called Blue Cut Fire ignited on Tuesday in the mountainous Cajon Pass, and has now spread across 25,626 acres.
The flames jumped a road Sunday and moved into the town of 1,200, where a post office, a winery, a Habitat for Humanity office and several other businesses were destroyed.
By Wednesday, more than 1,300 firefighters were battling the blaze, along with 152 engines, 18 crews, eight air tankers, two Very Large Air Tankers, and eight helicopters, including night-flying choppers.
More than 34,000 homes and some 82,000 people remain under evacuation orders.
An estimated 80,000 or more people were instructed to evacuate, but as NPR’s Nathan Rott tells All Things Considered, it’s not clear whether everyone has been heeding that warning.
“From reports that we were hearing, possibly up to half didn’t leave”, said Lyn Sieliet, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.
Six county firefighters were slightly injured as they were protecting homes and helping evacuate residents in Swarthout Canyon, but resumed battling the fire after treatment.
“I can tell you that this fire came out screaming through this section of the burn area”, Sherwin said. The 15 Freeway, the main route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, has been closed as a result of tall flames leaping from one side of the highway to the other.
Her escape involved a harrowing race down a mountain road, led by one police patrol vehicle in front and one behind her, with firefighters battling flames alongside her, according to a BBC correspondent’s naraation. In all, 10,000 firefighters are fighting the eight blazes.
California’s newest huge wildfire advanced on thousands of homes yesterday, feeding on drought-stricken vegetation and destroying an untold number of structures as it expanded to almost 47 square miles.
About 4,000 people in the town of Clearlake were allowed to return home Tuesday and more could follow Wednesday.
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The fire began Saturday and the next day raged through the downtown Lower Lake and nearby neighborhoods.
