LOS ANGELES – A deadly wildfire burning out of control for a sixth day in the parched mountains north of Los Angeles has doubled in size and poses a continuing threat to Mount Wilson, a key communications nexus for the region’s broadcasters and emergency services.
Two firefighters died on Sunday in a vehicle accident while battling the blaze deep in the Angeles National Forest and the rugged San Gabriel Mountains. Nearly 2,600 firefighting personnel, some from as far away as Montana and Wyoming, have been assembled to battle the flames.
The burned area ballooned to almost 86,000 acres (35,000 hectares) from 42,000 acres reported on Sunday, and the fire continued to encroach on the 5,700-foot summit of Mount Wilson, site of a world-famous observatory and a critical cluster of transmission towers for broadcasting and telecommunications. Three more residences were lost overnight in the inland area, in addition to the 18 houses reported destroyed on Sunday, said Scott Visyak, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Evacuation orders were lifted on Monday for several foothill communities at the northern edge of suburban Los Angeles that had been menaced by flames during much of the weekend, as well as for the town of Acton, on the opposite side of the massive fire farther to the north, Mr Visyak said.
While the blaze nearly doubled in size overnight, he said fire crews had managed to cut good buffer zones around many of the communities and neighbourhoods that had been most at risk.
“We feel good about the lines we’ve put in to save the communities,” Mr Visyak said. “We’re feeling pretty comfortable about those communities.”
The fire was only 5 per cent contained and may not be fully contained for another eight days, officials predicted.
Wilson remained an area of concern, but a firestorm expected to engulf the summit Sunday night or yesterday morning had not materialised as yet, giving firefighters more time to clear brush away from buildings and towers on the peak.
Dense, low-lying smoke held close to the ground by weather conditions was expected to dissipate later in the day, allowing aircraft to resume making drops of water and fire retardant over the hot spots.
The cause of the fire, which threatened more than 10,000 homes north of Los Angeles, is still being investigated. – (Reuters)