Fire officials report progress
Firefighters control a fire burning behind houses in the suburb of Glendale on the outskirts of Los Angeles city on September 1, 2009. A deadly wildfire roared out of control above Los Angeles, leaving two firefighters dead, forcing thousands to flee and threatening a crucial telecommunications facility. The monster blaze raging in mountains north of the densely populated metropolis had ripped through more than 105,000 acres (43,000 hectares) of tinder-dry forest and was 'spreading in every direction,' authorities said. An army of more than 2,500 firefighters was battling the blaze in the Angeles National Forest which remained only five percent contained and sent a giant white mushroom cloud of smoke across the city.
Fire officials report significant progress against the giant wildfire burning north of Los Angeles but are not willing to say they have the upper hand.
Update at 10:36 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2009: | Permalink
Fire officials report progress
U.S. Forest Service incident commander Mike Dietrich says containment Tuesday rose from 5 percent to 22 percent. The fire area now covers 199 square miles.
Damage assessment teams report that the number of residences destroyed has been raised to 62 from the previous estimate of 53.
The Sheriff's Department says the number of homes under mandatory evacuation orders in its jurisdiction has been reduced to 4,000. Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore says another 2,000 in the city of Los Angeles also remain under mandatory orders
(Copyright 2009 The Associated Press)
Update at 4:07 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2009: | Permalink
Huge wildfire portends bad Calif. fire season
By Greg Risling/AP
Firefighters reported some progress Tuesday against a gigantic blaze on the edge of Los Angeles, but warned that this one might be just a preview of even greater dangers ahead. The peak Southern California fire season hasn't even started yet.
The worst fires typically flare up in the fall, when ferocious Santa Ana winds can drive fires out of wilderness areas and into suburbs. As a result, Southern California could be in for a long wildfire season.
``When you see a fire burning like this, with no Santa Ana winds, we know that with the winds, it would be so much worse, so much more intense,'' said Los Angeles County fire Capt. Mark Whaling.
The Santa Anas are so devastating when they carry fire because they sweep down from the north and reach withering speeds as they squeeze through wilderness canyons and passes and plunge into developed areas.
Even though winds have been mostly calm since the blaze began along the northern fringe of Los Angeles and its suburbs, the flames have spread over 190 square miles of forest in a week. Some 12,000 homes remained threatened as 3,600 firefighters and aircraft battled the blaze across a 50-mile line.
But it was not the only significant blaze in Southern California.
In the inland region east of Los Angeles, 2,000 homes were being threatened by a fire of more than 1.5 square miles in the San Bernardino County community of Oak Glen, and a nearby 1.3-square-mile blaze was putting 900 homes at risk in Yucaipa.
``There's action everywhere,'' Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said as a helicopter interrupted his comments at a news conference in San Bernardino County.
The big fire, known as the Station Fire, was just 5 percent surrounded, but U.S. Forest Service incident commander Mike Dietrich said that figure could double by the end of the day, and he was pleased with progress.
``There's a lot more work to be done,'' Dietrich said. ``It's still a very treacherous situation. It could still turn around.''
Weather was more humid, which helps brush resist burning, but the downside was a possibility of dry lightning. Some sprinkles were reported, but no significant rain.
Officials were worried about the threat to a historic observatory on Mount Wilson northeast of Los Angeles. But on Tuesday, the flames near the facility appeared much tamer than the infernos that boiled up out of the mountain range in previous days.
Authorities could not immediately ascertain whether the fire at the top of Mount Wilson was the result of the overall advance of the blaze or backfires set by fire crews.
From a helicopter above the 5,700-foot peak, small flames could be seen creeping under trees. Firefighters had doused the peak with flame retardant before withdrawing when the fire appeared to be too dangerous.
Mount Wilson is home not only to the observatory but numerous television, radio and cell phone antennas serving the metropolitan area.
``The fire is still eventually going to impact around the site,'' Dietrich said. ``The amount of damage is yet to be seen.''
The fire is one of hundreds of wildfires in a season that usually does not gather steam until October, when the Santa Ana winds arrive.
This year's destructive Southern California wildfires began in May, when 80 homes were destroyed and more than a dozen others were damaged in the Santa Barbara area. ``Sundowner'' winds, a localized version of a Santa Ana, whipped a brush fire into an inferno in neighborhoods on the edge of the Los Padres National Forest.
Wind has not been a problem in the current fire, but drought has. The region is in the midst of a three-year drought, and the tinder-dry forest is ripe for an explosive fire.
Residents had a range of emotions as they watched the fire _ and they knew the lack of wind was a godsend.
``I'm a little concerned but not overly worried,'' said retiree Paul Westmoreland, 77, who lives in the Seven Hills neighborhood in Tujunga. ``But if we had had high winds, this whole area would have gone.''
Some of the spectators were residents who followed orders to leave but could not resist coming back to their neighborhoods.
Jennifer Pelon, 43, came back Tuesday morning to see if her 3,000-square-foot home on a hillside was still standing. She nervously watched as flames licked a ridgeline only yards from her home.
``It's a lot of stress and anxiety, watching,'' she said. ``It's your whole life up there.''
At the huge fire command center, Glendale firefighter-paramedic Jack Hayes, 31, recounted how he manned a 2,000-gallon water truck to extinguish flames bearing down on backyards.
``We've been knocking them all down and saving some homes,'' he said.
Hayes said he had not taken a day off for a week.
``You can't sleep,'' said Hayes, who had the beginnings of a beard and bloodshot eyes. ``You're ready to go and there's always something you could be doing.''
Two firefighters _ Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo ``Arnie'' Quinones, 35, of Palmdale _ were killed Sunday when their vehicle plummeted off a mountain road. Quinones' wife is expecting a child soon, and Hall had a wife and two adult children.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama sent their condolences to the firefighters' families. Gibbs said the White House will do whatever it can to assist state and local governments.
The Station Fire was the biggest but not the most destructive of the wildfires currently burning in California. Northeast of Sacramento, a fire burning over a half square mile destroyed 60 structures over the weekend, many of them homes in the town of Auburn. The fire was 80 percent contained Tuesday and no longer threatened any homes.
Associated Press writers Jacob Adelman and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles and Juliet Williams in Sacramento contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Update at 2:33 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2009: | Permalink
Fire boss sees gains near LA; Auburn fire nearly contained, while another fans toward homes
California firefighters have been setting backfires and bulldozing clearings across a huge swath of forest as they try to conquer a wildfire north of Los Angeles.
The 190-square-mile fire has torched 53 homes and is threatening many more. A fire official says he's optimistic progress is being made. He's been getting a lot of help, as some 3,600 firefighters – backed by aircraft – battle the blaze across a 50-mile span.
The fire has done its worst to one suburban neighborhood, where people are returning to what one resident describes as a ``lunar landscape'' of destruction. Fire bosses say it could take weeks to contain the blaze.
Northeast of Sacramento, a fire that wiped out 60 homes and businesses is 80 percent contained. It's no longer a threat to homes in Auburn and evacuation orders have been lifted.
Elsewhere, an 840-acre wildfire near Yucaipa has been 25 percent contained. But a spokesman says rising winds have been pushing it toward populated areas. Some 2,100 residents are being urged to leave.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Update at 1:41 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2009: | Permalink
Planners anticipate post-fire cleanup
Hillsides being cleared of brush will make the hillsides more susceptible to mudslides. A representative of the Forest Service told KPCC's Patt Morrison that a burn team will be sent to evaluate the hillsides after the fire, preparing for the winter storm. Depending on how hot the fire burns, vegetation in the area may come back, but if the fire burned hot enough, the area may need to be reseeded or replanted. More...
Update at 12:52 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2009: | Permalink
Fire was like 'Armageddon'
Jane Neff Rawlins was celebrating her 27th wedding anniversary in Santa Barbara over the weekend when she got a call from her son saying there was a fire in the neighborhood.
Initially the fire was only 500 acres so she didn’t think her home was in danger.
But driving home on the the Foothill Freeway near the 5, she saw flames.
“It looked like Armageddon,” Rawlins said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Braving encroaching flames into her neighborhood, she tried to return to her home because she had forgotten her lockbox containing important papers. She saw flames leaping up from a ridge near La Crescenta's Deukmejian Park, flames fighting flames from a controlled burn.
"My God, my house is going to burn down," she remembers thinking at the time.
"But that looks like that’s not going to happen after all."
— Brian Watt
Update at 12:42 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2009: | Permalink
By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON
Associated Press Writer
Firefighters set backfires and removed brush with bulldozers across a huge swath of Southern California forest on Tuesday to try to contain a 190-square-mile wildfire that has destroyed 53 homes and threatened thousands more in foothill suburbs.
The commander of the vast firefighting operation expressed a positive outlook for the first time in the week since the blaze erupted in the Angeles National Forest north of Los Angeles and grew into a giant.
"I'm feeling a lot more optimistic today than I did yesterday and the crews are doing fabulous work out there on the grounds but the bottom line is that they're fighting for every foot," said Mike Dietrich of the U.S. Forest Service.
The fire continued to spread in wilderness but Dietrich said the containment figure was expected to rise substantially from the current 5 percent after overnight progress was mapped. He noted that bulldozers had carved up to 12 miles of lines and no new structures were lost overnight.
Some 3,600 firefighters and aircraft were working across a 50-mile span to battle the blaze.
"There's action everywhere," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said as a thundering helicopter interrupted his news conference at the scene of two other wildfires burning in the inland region east of Los Angeles.
Firefighters were keeping a close eye on the weather. Hurricane Jimena roared toward Baja California, but was not forecast to have much of a factor in firefighting efforts because it is expected to dissipate by the time it hits Southern California.
Meteorologist Curt Kaplan says there was a 20 percent chance of a thunderstorm in the fire area Tuesday, but that could end up being a bad thing because the storm could spawn 40-mph wind gusts. The one factor that's helped firefighters this week has been the lack of wind to drive the flames. Kaplan says temperatures will begin slowly cooling later in the week.
"The good news is that it's humidity," Dietrich said. "The bad news is that it may produce lightning, possibly dry lightning, over parts of the fire area."
The blaze threatened some 12,000 homes but had already done its worst to the suburban Tujunga Canyon neighborhood, where residents returned to their wrecked homes.
Bert Voorhees and his son on Monday fetched several cases of wine from the brackish water of their backyard swimming pool, about all he salvaged from his home.
"You're going to be living in a lunar landscape for at least a couple of years, and these trees might not come back," the 53-year-old Voorhees said. "Are enough of our neighbors going to rebuild?"
About 2,000 people were chased from their homes in triple-digit heat as fire bosses said it could take weeks to contain the fire. Fire spokesman Paul Lowenthal said Tuesday that the blaze is expected to be fully surrounded Sept. 15.
Some people wouldn't leave. Authorities said five men and one woman refused several orders to evacuate a remote ranch in a canyon near Gold Creek. The Los Angeles County sheriff's office had initially said the people were trapped and could not be rescued.
"When we tried to get them out, they said they're fine, no problem, they didn't want to leave," said fire spokesman Larry Marinas.
Dietrich said people who choose to stay take their lives in their own hands.
"As the sheriff said, they'll take their next of kin and ask where their dental records are stored and we'll go back in after it. We can't be their guardians or parents."
The swath of fire extends from the densely populated foothill communities of Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Tujunga and Sunland on the south to the high desert Acton in the north.
Beth Halaas knew her creekside home in Big Tujunga Canyon was gone when she saw her favorite Norwegian dishware on television news. But she was desperate to see for herself and cajoled fire officials to escort her through barricaded roads.
"It's just stuff," she murmured, as her 5-year-old son Robert kicked at a deflated soccer ball in his sandbox. She raked ceramic cups from the ashes.
Two firefighters - Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones, 35, of Palmdale - were killed when their vehicle plummeted off a mountain road on Sunday. Quinones' wife is expecting a child any week, and Hall has a wife and two adult children.
In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama "send their condolences" to the familes of two firefighters who died battling the blaze. Gibbs said the White House was receiving updates on the fires and will do whatever it can from the federal level to assist state and local governments.
The 53 homes destroyed included some forest cabins, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dennis Cross. He did not know how many were full-time residences.
At late morning, the fire was close to facilities at the historic observatory on Mount Wilson northeast of Los Angeles, a KCBS-KCAL TV helicopter showed from above the 5,700-foot-high peak. The flames appeared small, however, creeping under trees on land with no thick brush. Firefighters were on the mountain.
Fire crews earlier set backfires and sprayed fire retardant at Mount Wilson, which is also the site of at least 20 television transmission towers, radio and cell phone antennas. The observatory is home to giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs in its role as both a landmark for its discoveries and a thriving modern center for astronomy.
T.J. Lynch and his wife, Maggie, were among residents who evacuated late Monday after the eerie orange glow on the horizon turned into flames cresting the hill near their Tujunga home.
"It's pretty surreal, pretty humbling, how your life is represented in these objects that you collect and then you have to whittle them down," he said, describing the difficulty of choosing what to bring with them.
He said his wife would miss the 1965 Mustang that she has owned since she was a teenager. He would miss the antiques that decorate their home.
"It's a beautiful place - is? Was? I don't know anymore," he said of their home.
The blaze in the Los Angeles foothills was the biggest but not most destructive of California's wildfires. Northeast of Sacramento, a wind-driven fire destroyed 60 structures over the weekend, many of them homes in the town of Auburn.
The 340-acre blaze wiped out an entire cul-de-sac, leaving only smoldering ruins, a handful of chimneys and burned cars.
The fire was 80 percent contained Tuesday and no longer threatened any homes, said MaryAnn Aldrich, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
East of Los Angeles, firefighters had 40 percent containment of 1,013-acre fire that damaged one home, threatened 2,000 others and forced the evacuation of a scenic community of apple orchards in the Oak Glen area of San Bernardino County.
A few miles away, an 840-acre wildfire on the edge of Yucaipa was 25 percent contained but rising winds Tuesday morning were pushing flames toward the community. Some 2,100 residents of 900 homes were urged to evacuate, said Jason Meyer, a state forestry spokesman.
---
Associated Press Writers John Antczak, Daisy Nguyen and Solvej Schou in Los Angeles and Samantha Young in Auburn contributed to this report.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Update at 9:58 a.m. on Sept. 1, 2009: | Permalink
'Ominous' flames back light Tujunga hillside
Flames from the other side of a hill backlit an otherwise darkened Tujunga neighborhood at daybreak this morning near Verdugo Hills High School where some 36 people had been seeking shelter overnight from the Station Fire.
"It was ominous because it was dark and that was all you could see," reports KPCC's Brian Watt. "When you see the outline of a big hillside and there are four to five sections that are bright orange, that is ominous if you don’t know what’s going on."
A halo of light from the schools football stadium radiated out.
"This is like a beacon to people who are looking for shelter," said Los Angeles Unified School District Officer George Sandoval.
Verdugo was the only LAUSD school opened for shelter for this fire. Some 36 people spent the night there, triple the number who stayed there on Sunday. People slept on cots. One man walked out this morning with his own pillow. Some residents remarked that the man he had good forethought.
The Red Cross and L.A. schools partner up to provide shelters and only high schools are opened as Red Cross evacuation sites because high schools have gyms and showers whereas elementary schools don't, said Bob Spears, the director of emergency services for LAUSD.
— Brian Watt
Flames plowed through half-century-old thickets of tinder-dry brush, bush and trees just 15 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Firefighters awaited daybreak to learn the new extent of the 6-day-old fire, which is now expected to burn for weeks.
The size of fire in the Angeles National Forest grew to more than 190 square miles overnight, U.S. Forest Service Cmdr. Mike Dietrich said.
It was spreading in all directions early Tuesday, from Sunland on the western front of the fire to the high desert ranchlands of Acton on the northeast.
"Pretty much everywhere, right now, is the hot spot," forest spokesman Shane Rollman said.
Firefighters planned to set backfires to protect the Sunland area and will try to halt its northeastern spread with bulldozers to carve eight miles of firebreak in the Acton area, Rollman said.
Firefighters were keeping a close eye on the weather. Hurricane Jimena roared toward Baja California, but was not forecast to have much of a factor in firefighting efforts because it is expected to dissipate by the time it hits Southern California.
Meteorologist Curt Kaplan says there is a 20 percent chance of a thunderstorm in the fire area Tuesday, but that could end up being a bad thing because the storm could spawn 40-mph wind gusts. The one factor that's helped firefighters this week has been the lack of wind to drive the flames. Kaplan says temperatures will begin slowly cooling later in the week.
The blaze threatened some 12,000 homes but had already done its worst to the suburban Tujunga Canyon neighborhood, where residents returned to their wrecked homes.
Bert Voorhees and his son on Monday fetched several cases of wine from the brackish water of their backyard swimming pool, about all he salvaged from his home.
"You're going to be living in a lunar landscape for at least a couple of years, and these trees might not come back," the 53-year-old Voorhees said. "Are enough of our neighbors going to rebuild?"
About 2,000 people were chased from their homes in triple-digit heat as fire bosses said it could take weeks to contain the fire. Fire spokesman Paul Lowenthal said Tuesday that the blaze is expected to be fully surrounded Sept. 15. Only 5 percent of the fire, the largest of several California wildfires, was contained so far.
Some people wouldn't leave. Authorities said five men and one woman refused several orders to evacuate a remote ranch in a canyon near Gold Creek. The Los Angeles County sheriff's office had initially said the people were trapped and could not be rescued.
"When we tried to get them out, they said they're fine, no problem, they didn't want to leave," said fire spokesman Larry Marinas.
Crews fighting the blaze also were contending with favorable fire conditions such as high temperatures topping 100 degrees and low humidity. Temperatures near the fire were expected to hit 102 degrees Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.
The swath of fire extends from the densely populated foothill communities of Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta, Tujunga and Sunland in the south to Acton.
Beth Halaas knew her creekside home in Big Tujunga Canyon was gone when she saw her favorite Norwegian dishware on television news. But she was desperate to see for herself and cajoled fire officials to escort her through barricaded roads.
"It's just stuff," she murmured, as her 5-year-old son Robert kicked at a deflated soccer ball in his sandbox. She raked ceramic cups from the ashes.
Two firefighters - Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones, 35, of Palmdale - were killed when their vehicle plummeted off a mountain road on Sunday. Quinones' wife is expecting a child any week, and Hall has a wife and two adult children.
The 53 homes destroyed included some forest cabins, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dennis Cross. He did not know how many were full-time residences.
Fire crews set backfires and sprayed fire retardant at Mount Wilson, home to at least 20 television transmission towers, radio and cell phone antennas, and the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. It also houses two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs in its role as both a landmark for its historic discoveries and a thriving modern center for astronomy.
If the flames hit the mountain, some cell phone service and TV and radio transmissions would be disrupted.
T.J. Lynch and his wife, Maggie, were among residents who evacuated late Monday after the eerie orange glow on the horizon turned into flames cresting the hill near their Tujunga home.
"It's pretty surreal, pretty humbling, how your life is represented in these objects that you collect and then you have to whittle them down," he said, describing the difficulty of choosing what to bring with them.
He said his wife would miss the 1965 Mustang that she has owned since she was a teenager. He would miss the antiques that decorate their home.
"It's a beautiful place - is? Was? I don't know anymore," he said of their home.
The blaze in the Los Angeles foothills was the biggest but not most destructive of California's wildfires. Northeast of Sacramento, a wind-driven fire destroyed 60 structures over the weekend, many of them homes in the town of Auburn.
The 340-acre blaze wiped out an entire cul-de-sac, leaving only smoldering ruins, a handful of chimneys and burned cars.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday toured the Auburn area, where only charred remnants of some homes remained. At some houses, the only things left on the foundation are metal cabinets and washers and dryers.
East of Los Angeles, a 1,000-acre fire damaged one home, threatened 2,000 others and forced the evacuation of a scenic community of apple orchards in an oak-studded area of San Bernardino County. Brush in the area had not burned for a century, fire officials said. Flames burning like huge candles erupted between rocky slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains and the neat farmhouses below. A few miles away, a 300-acre wildfire that erupted on the edge of Yucaipa forced the evacuation of 200 homes.
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Associated Press Writers John Antczak, Daisy Nguyen and Solvej Schou in Los Angeles and Samantha Young in Auburn contributed to this report.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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