LOS ANGELES (AP) – A fire that burned several homes near Los Angeles may indicate the region faces the same dangers that have burned northern California.
The fire in San Bernardino County erupted Wednesday afternoon, quickly burned several hundred acres and damaged or destroyed at least a dozen homes and outbuildings in the foothills northeast of Los Angeles, officials said. firefighters. Teams used shovels and excavators and launched an air strike to keep fire south of the small communities of Lytle Creek and Scotland, near Cajon Pass.
Some 600 houses and other buildings were threatened along with power lines and 1,000 residents were under evacuation orders.
As night fell, firefighters seemed to gain control and few flames were seen. But the flame was worrisome because the high fire season in Southern California is usually later in the year, when strong, dry Santa Ana winds blow inland and flow toward the coast.
After a few cooler days, the southern region was expected to return to warm weather over the weekend. In addition to the dangerously dry conditions, the region is facing an increasingly widespread fire brigade, said Lyn Sieliet, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest.
“Some of our firefighters we normally have in our forests are working on fires in Northern California, or Idaho and Washington,” he told KTLA-TV. “We don’t have the full staff we normally do.”
The largest fires in the state and nation have occurred in northern California, where they have burned small mountain towns and destroyed huge strips of dry forest.
The Caldor fire destroyed some 500 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe, including much of the small town of Grizzly Flats. 12% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.
Last week, Buck Minitch, a Pioneer Fire Protection District firefighter, was called to the lines of fire as his wife fled her Grizzly floors with her two daughters, three dogs, a kitten and a bag of clothes, according to reports San Jose Mercury News. .
Hannah Minitch evacuated her parents ’property and the next morning received a text from her husband showing only a fireplace where her house was located. The two cried together during a phone call before returning to work.
“We have nothing left here,” she recalled, “I must go and protect what is left for other people.”
At times, the fire caused by the wind burned 1,000 acres of land per hour and on Wednesday was less than two dozen miles from Lake Tahoe, an alpine tourist spot straddling the California-Nevada state line.
There was no evacuation to Tahoe, but the fire continued to cast a sick skin of yellow smoke over the picturesque region.
South Lake Tahoe and Tahoe City, on the west shore, had the nation’s worst air pollution Wednesday mid-morning, according to AirNow, an association of federal, state and local airline agencies.
Meanwhile, the Dixie Fire in California, the second largest in state history at 3,004 square miles, burned just about 104 miles north. It had 45% content. About 700 homes were among about 1,300 buildings that have been destroyed.
In the southern Sierra Nevada, there was growing concern as French fire spread near Lake Isabella, a popular fishing and boating destination. About 10 communities were under evacuation orders. The fire has blackened 32 square kilometers (83 square kilometers) since Aug. 18.
The smoke from the fires had polluted the air further south. The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued an advisor until Thursday morning for large portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
Nationwide, 92 large fires burned in 13 mostly western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
Climate change has made the West warmer and drier for the past 30 years and will continue to make the climate more extreme and forest fires more destructive, according to scientists.