96 homes burned in California fire

More blazes spring up in state’s drought-parched landscape

Michelle and Scott Keeney search the rubble of their burned home Friday in Oak Hills, Calif. Michelle Keeney is the manager of the Summit Inn, a popular diner on historic Route 66, which sat next door to the home and burned, too.
Michelle and Scott Keeney search the rubble of their burned home Friday in Oak Hills, Calif. Michelle Keeney is the manager of the Summit Inn, a popular diner on historic Route 66, which sat next door to the home and burned, too.

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- A preliminary assessment found 96 single-family homes have been destroyed in Southern California's wildfire, a spokesman said Friday.

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AP

Firefighter Tyler Jaquess of the Del Rosa Hot Shots monitors the Blue Cut fire Friday as it burns in Upper Lytle Creek near Wrightwood, Calif. Firefighters were on the offensive Friday as they worked to expand significant gains against a huge wildfire that chased thousands of people from their homes in Southern California.

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AP

An exterior wall stands in front of a residence scorched by a wildfire Friday in Phelan, Calif.

Also destroyed were 213 outbuildings, said Brad Pitassi, a spokesman for the multiagency fire command.

The news came as firefighters were taking the offensive to expand significant gains in corralling the fire.

"We've got the ball, we're on the move," fire information officer Bob Poole said.

The fire has scorched nearly 58 square miles and was 40 percent contained as it entered its fourth day in mountains and desert 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

Poole said it was "spectacular" to make progress so quickly against a fire that had firefighters on the defensive for the first day and a half.

Plans were underway to demobilize some of the nearly 1,600 firefighters.

"Crews really buttoned up some areas. But the possibility is still there for explosive growth," Pitassi said.

One area of concern was southeast of the ski town of Wrightwood, where old-growth brush and trees haven't burned in 70 years, fire behavior analyst Brendan Ripley said.

Elsewhere, the fire's growth was limited because flames had reduced the land to a moonscape.

"The fire burned so intensely that there's no fuel left for it to move again," Pitassi said.

Some 82,000 residents were under evacuation orders at the height of the fire. A small number of evacuees have been allowed to return home, but Pitassi could not say when all the evacuations would be lifted.

Among those waiting to return was Lisa Gregory, who didn't know whether her house was still standing.

The uncertainty "is an awful feeling," she said Thursday as she lounged in a lawn chair under a tree outside an evacuation center.

Meanwhile, a new fire broke out in rural Santa Barbara County, quickly surging to about 600 acres and prompting the evacuation of a pair of campgrounds.

In the southern Sierra Nevada, another blaze feeding on dense timber in Sequoia National Forest exploded to nearly 15 square miles. Tiny hamlets in Kern and Tulare counties were evacuated.

During five years of drought, California's wilderness has seen a continuous streak of destructive and sometimes deadly fires. No deaths have been reported in the latest fire, but crews assessing property damage were using cadaver dogs during searches.

The dry vegetation is like firewood, said Sean Collins, another fire information officer.

"It burns that much quicker, that much hotter. The rate of travel is extremely fast," he said.

Wildfires across the country in recent years have grown more ferocious and expensive to fight.

Last year's fire season set a record with more than 15,625 square miles of land charred. It was also the costliest on record with $2.1 billion spent to fight fires from Alaska to Florida.

Experts have blamed several factors, including rising temperatures that more quickly dry out forests and vegetation. Decades of aggressively knocking down small fires also have led to the buildup of flammable fuel. On top of that, more people are moving into fire-prone regions, complicating firefighting efforts.

The Southern California fire unleashed its initial fury on a semirural landscape dotted with small ranches and homes in Cajon Pass and on the edge of the Mojave Desert before climbing the mountains.

In mountains north of San Francisco, a 6-square-mile blaze was 75 percent contained after destroying at least 299 structures, including 175 homes and eight businesses, in the working-class community of Lower Lake.

The equipment manager, or "armorer," of the U.S. Olympic fencing team, was among those who lost their homes. Matthew Porter was in Rio with the medal-winning team when the house burned.

As the fires burn, officials said they were seeing a trend in the state: Instead of heading for safety, many homeowners are staying put and dialing 911 for help, U.S. Forest Service spokesman John Miller said.

"We have seen that throughout the state this year," said Miller, who is assigned to San Bernardino National Forest, where the wildfire that threatened Wrightwood started Tuesday.

Crews, however, aren't always able to reach those who stay behind in time.

In June, authorities found the burned remains of a man and woman who were caretakers of property in an area where an evacuation order had been issued near Potrero, about 45 miles east of San Diego.

Kim Boyle, who has experienced about a half-dozen wildfires during her decade in Wrightwood, said she would evacuate if she saw a fire actually burning in town.

"But it'd have to be closer for me, and I think that's true for a lot of folks around here because they've been through this so many times," she said.

More than 34,000 homes and some 82,000 residents were under evacuation orders at one point. No deaths have been reported so far in this week's blaze.

Information for this article was contributed by John Antczak, Amanda Lee Myers, Robert Jablon, Kristin Bender and Olga Rodriguez and Julie Watson of The Associated Press.

A Section on 08/20/2016

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