6:35 PM PST, October 28, 2003
Fires Near Lake Arrowhead, Big Bear Resorts and Stevenson Ranch
By Marisa Lagos, Zeke Minaya and Daryl Strickland, Times Staff Writers
Over 1,000 firefighters battling the Simi Valley blaze were successful in keeping the fire from entering the San Fernando Valley today, but could not keep flames from crossing into Los Angeles County by nightfall.
By 5 p.m., the fire was threatening the upscale Stevenson Ranch area from the southwest, and firefighters were frantically setting backfires and bombing the blaze with water-dropping helicopters to slow its advance, Los Angeles County fire spokesman Nathan Gonzales said.
And despite the higher humidity and drop in Santa Ana winds, wildfires also continued to march toward the resort mountain communities of Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead today, forcing massive evacuations.
In San Diego, dual blazes threatened to merge into one huge inferno and forced homeowners in mountain communities to flee. The small town of Cuyamaca, south of Julian, was 90% destroyed today, and fire officials said the affected areas could total as much as 250,000 acres for the Cedar fire alone.
Officials said they may have partial containment of that fire by next Monday.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-102803fire_lat,1,7213448.story?coll=la-headlines-californiaJust heard over the Simi scanner link that there are power lines down. FFers are to consider all powerlines live. Not certian what streets they were talking about.