Despite being impeded by treacherous terrain, hot, dry, windy weather and the ferocious blaze, authorities said almost 1,600 firefighters had been able to carve containment lines around 22 percent of the fire zone, up from just four percent earlier in the day.
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San Bernardino County fire officials are uncertain how many homes have burned.
Many homes have burned, but Sherwin says there are still no specific figures on how many.
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.
North of San Francisco, the so-called Clayton Fire is said to be 50 percent contained after charring almost 4,000 acres in and around the community of Lower Lake and destroying 286 homes and other structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
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. Evacuation orders are still in effect in Wrightwood, but some residents are ignoring them. Within 24 hours, the Sand Fire scorched 20,000 acres, and in a week, it burned another 21,000 acres.
The 15 Freeway reopened Thursday, leaving one additional closure: Highway 2, from Highway 138 to the Los Angeles County Line.
The interstate was shut down Tuesday when the fast-moving fire erupted 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
Firefighters battling a 40-square-mile wildfire in the mountains and desert of Southern California face another day of hot and dry weather with gusty southwest winds.
Crews fanned out across fire-ravaged zones to begin inspecting the damage, but many places were still too unsafe to enter.
Meanwhile, a new fire broke out in rural Santa Barbara County, quickly surging to about 600 acres and prompting the evacuation of a pair of campgrounds.
Fire officials said they haven’t been able to assess the complete damage from the Blue Cut Fire because getting into the remote mountain areas where it was burning had been too risky.
Travel was returning to normal in the pass a major corridor for trucking, rail and commuter traffic after Interstate 15 was fully reopened.
“It burns that much quicker, that much hotter”. “The big fires will continue to come”.
About 34,500 structures remain threatened in the communities of Wrightwood, Oak Hills, Phelan, Lytle Creek, Baldy Mesa, West Cajon Valleya and South Hesperia and Summit Valley, according to the federal incident page for the Blue Cut Fire.
The National Weather Service says red flag warnings for unsafe fire conditions will remain in effect through Thursday evening.
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Six firefighters were briefly trapped while defending homes and assisting in evacuations in the Swarthout Canyon area west of Cajon Pass, according to a press release from San Bernardino County Fire.
