California fire burns buildings as residents balk at leaving

Recent reports suggest as many as 10,000 homes (20,000 residents) have been evacuated and that almost 200 commercial buildings are threatened.

“We have very little wind, we have an increase in relative humidity, and so it’s favorable for us to get out and to put out hot spots and work on line construction”, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Greg Hisel said. “They were saddened by the fact that they lost structures and part of the conversation was that they felt they lost additional structures because they had to stop what they were doing to help citizens evacuate”.

Investigators discovered a man’s body in this burned out vehicle. The fire was threatening about 1,650 mountain homes.

A raging California wildfire has set more than 33,000 acres of the Santa Clarita Valley ablaze and threatens to ignite thousands of homes as winds push the flames from the forest toward the Antelope Valley, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. According to the sheriff’s department, the cause of the man’s death has not been determined, and an investigation is underway.

Lois Wash, 87, said she, her daughter and her dog evacuated, but her husband refused.

“My husband’s stubborn as a mule, and he wouldn’t leave”, Wash told KABC-TV. There’s no way of knowing.

The blaze had burned through at least 51 square miles of brush and destroyed at least 18 homes, but those numbers could well take a leap Monday when better assessment is done at daylight. I think the last time I looked it was about 100 yards from us. “I knew I could get out when I needed to”, Loth responded. “All we can do is pray”.

More than 1,300 personnel are battling the original 23-square-mile fire, which is burning mostly out of control in hard-to-reach, rugged mountainous terrain.

“I hope I don’t have to rebuild my house”, he told the Monterey Herald.

But it is one of some 3,750 blazes large and small to have erupted across California since January, a higher-than-normal total, collectively scorching more than 200,000 acres, state fire officials said.

Helicopters released retardant around the perimeter of the fire all day and into the night.

The ferocious blaze destroyed much of Sable Ranch in Santa Clarita, which has Western-style buildings used for movie locations.

Hedren’s animal sanctuary, Shambala Preserve, was also forced to move 340 of its more than 400 residents, including Bengal tigers and a mountain lion, according to the Hollywood Reporter.