Firefighters continue to advance fighting a forest fire in the hills near the Los Angeles and Ventura County line, allowing thousands of evacuated residents to return to their homes on Friday night, since public health officials warned about a potentially unhealthy air in the area during the weekend.
At 6 pm on Friday, the teams had reached 28% containment in the 5,370 acres cannon fire that burns near Castaic, which broke out in the middle of a heat wave on Thursday and has destroyed at least two buildings and wounded three firefighters, according to the Department of Firefighters of the County of the.
The evacuation orders that affect around 2,700 residents have been degraded to warnings, while evacuation warnings that affect around 14,000 residents have been raised, according to the spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, Andrew Dowd.
“We have progressed greatly in this fire; we are very proud of the hard work that men and women have done on the ground,” Dowd said. “I think that residents in the area can be grateful for firefighters who came here to help them serve them.”
At 6:20 pm, a single vehicle turned around the fire scene and a person was taken to a hospital to receive treatment, Dowd said. The Ventura County Fire Department is investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident and did not say if the injured person was a firefighter.
According to the District of Air Quality Management of the South Coast, the smoke of the Canyon Fire is causing the quality of the non -healthy air in the Los Angeles County, mainly in the 5 highway corridor near the Castaic Lake. The Department of Public Health of the Los Angeles County has issued a smoke notice until 11 in the morning on Sunday, and urges everyone in the areas where they can see or smell smoke to limit or avoid outdoor activity.
Ventura County officials said the fire was lit just before 2 pm on Thursday, when temperatures reached a maximum point of about 100 degrees, northeast of Piru, a small city not incorporated not far from the Castaic crossing. He then accused the east, threatening houses and temporarily caused evacuation orders in the communities of the Los Angeles County Val Ver, Hasley Canyon and Castaic.
Taking advantage of the coldest temperatures on Thursday night until Friday morning, the teams could make advances against the fire that moves quickly that grew to several thousand acres in a matter of hours, Dowd said. But he said that the fight ahead is still challenging, given the warm climate, the rugged terrain and a dry landscape that, together, can encourage the extreme growth of fire.
“We are seeing some outbreaks in various parts of the fire,” Dowd said Friday morning. “We still have record fuel humidity in the area, so we are not lowering our guard.”
Dowd said two small structures have been confirmed, probably shed or dependencies, Dowd. The authorities have not confirmed any damaged house or businesses, but the video of the scene showed some buildings destroyed or wrapped in flames. It was not clear immediately if that was an additional damage of the two small buildings.
A helicopter presents fire retardant at a hot point on the hill on Castaic High School while fighting Canyon's fire in Castaic on Friday.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Dowd said he hopes that containment will grow during Friday night, since firefighters double, “so that is to patrol, mop, strengthen the containment lines, address hot points and sprouts as they occur, and continue providing defense of the structure and protection of structure to those properties that may be at risk.”
The residents in the Val Verde area said the flames were visible from the western edge of the neighborhood on Thursday, but the threat seemed to have calmed down a little on Friday morning, although the air remained full of soot and ashes.
“There is a lot of smoke. The air is very, very bad,” Jennifer Elkins, president of Val Green Civic Assn, said on Friday. His neighborhood was under an evacuation order on Thursday afternoon, but could return home on Friday.
“We simply stay locked inside and watching things,” Elkins said. “This is a really hard fire season, and I am very happy that the fire department really takes each fire seriously … This is a great threat to the community.”
The Canyon fire quickly became one of the largest fires caused for days of intense heat in southern California. To the north in the counties of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, the much larger Gifford fire has burned more than 100,000 acres.
Unfortunately for firefighters on the ground, the heat is expected to persist in the weekend, although temperatures can go down one or two degrees.
It is forecast that temperatures would reach its maximum point on Friday at 98 degrees around the cannon fire, and that heat plus winds, low humidity and dry landscape would continue to create high fire conditions during the weekend, said Mike Wofford, a meteorologist of the National Meteorological Service in Oxnard.
“He is mature for fires and the spread of fire,” Wofford said.
A hand crew fighting Canyon's fire flames in Castaic.
(Eric Thayer / Getty images)
“Although a few degrees of cooling are expected during the weekend, a very warm air mass will be maintained instead. A ground flow regime will prevent temperatures from exceeding record levels, but temperatures are expected to remain above the seasonal normal as high pressure progresses over the southwest of the United States,” said the weather service in a prognosis on Friday morning.
Initially, it was reported that the fire was about 30 acres, but in approximately two hours that the estimate jumped to more than 1,000 acres, according to Ventura County officials. At midnight, it had spread through 4,856 acres and was running east towards Castaic and highway 5 in Los Angeles County. On Friday, another 514 acres grew.
According to firefighters, more than 400 firefighters were assigned to the incident.
A resident spray his house while firefighters prepare to fight the flames from Canyon's fire in Castaic.
(Eric Thayer / Getty images)
The American Union of Civil Liberties raised concerns about the proximity of the fire to the Pitches detention center, where around 5,000 inmates are in four prisons. The center is east of highway 5 and fell outside an evacuation warning zone on the first night of the fire.
The senior lawyer of the staff, Melissa Camacho, said she was “seriously concerned” about the growing fire.
“January's fire burned half a mile from prisons and not a single person imprisoned there was evacuated,” Camacho told The Times. “It is a heartbreaking that, less than eight months later, the 5,000 people in prisons and their loved ones will spend another night of insomnia looking at a fire and praying so that it does not reach them.”
The department of the Sheriff of the Los Angeles County, which operates the installation, said that it was actively monitoring the fire conditions and that it was in constant communication with firefighters and county officials.
“Similar to the evacuation plans implemented at the University of Pepperdine in Malibú, the Fire Department has reported that a refuge strategy in the place is the safest option for custody personnel and inmates, given the type of buildings construction and the current fire behavior,” said Nicole Nishida agency spokeswoman in a statement. The area around the building has been cleared as a brush and has ample defensible space, he said.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced Friday that the State had assured the support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help pay the fight against the fire. The fire management assistance grant can provide federal funds for up to 75% of the eligible fire extinction costs, including fields for field camps, use of equipment, supplies and mobilization and demobilization activities, according to FEMA.
