Posted on 10/22/2007 3:35:18 PM PDT by Smogger
The two fires burning in the San Bernardino mountains have burned more than 125 homes as of 3 p.m., authorities said.
The Grass Valley fire west of Lake Arrowhead near Grass Valley Lake has charred 300 acres to 400 acres and destroyed an estimated 113 homes, said John Miller, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman.
The Slide Fire burning near Green Valley Lake has burned 1,500 acres and destroyed 15 homes, Miller said.
Both fires are moving southwest.
(Excerpt) Read more at beloblog.com ...
http://www.inciweb.org/state/5/
http://www.beloblog.com/Pe_Blogs/#a142315
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1914650/posts?q=1&;page=1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1914698/posts?page=82#82
We have two breaking news threads already.
Why start a third?
Well they are actually several different fires. People that live in Malibu don’t care about the San Diego fire, and they don’t care about the Arrowhead fire and so on.
I am just going to update this one thread for now.
Leave us Arrowhead people alone.
Channel 4 is reporting 128 homes CONFIRMED destroyed.
Getting Ugly!....
How close is it to Lake Gregory? Used to go up there often in my high school days.
My girlfriends parents got a pad in Crestline. They are right next to Lake Gregory. Pretty close, but they haven’t evacuated Crestline yet (they have closed all of the roads up though)
thanks. we’re watching running springs. things don’t look good right now.
The fire or Arrowhead? Not far for either. We used to go to Lake Gregory to watch fire works on the lake.
I blame George W. Bush for not building a weather machine to prevent these tragic events from happening.
when are these enviro politicos going to be held to criminal account. Pure obstruction leading to a grossly negligent situation re the unmaintained land. I’m no lawyer but this looks like a slam dunk.
Residents Turned Back
With Highway 330 closed into the mountains at about 9 a.m. today, it didn’t stop hundreds of people from trying to get back home to check on their homes, families and pets. But they were out of luck as sheriff’s deputies blocked highway on-ramps leading into the mountains.
Close to 1,000 mountain residents were turned away in just the first two hours, said San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman Jeff Bradford.
And those who were headed up Highway 330 before it closed were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles.
Scores of others who failed to make the cutoff milled around at the bottom as the smoke gathered overhead.
One woman created a stir when she yelled, “My son is up there! Nobody is listening!”
With deputies refusing to let her pass, Eileen Johnson shouted, pointing up the winding road, “My truck is right up there! It’s not very far.”
And then, getting more agitated, she shouted, “I’m going to walk if I have to.”
“People here lost homes today,” said a visibly shaken Bradford, who walked up to the deputies and explained that the ranger’s station where Eileen and Jace Johnson had apparently left their 16-year-old son to tend a fully loaded trailer was only three or four miles away.
“Three cars, two drivers,” said Highland Police Officer B. Averbeck as he guided Jace Johnson into his vehicle and drove back up toward the City Creek Ranger station to retrieve the couple’s son along with the truck.
At the bottom, Beth Walsh and Ricky Garcia of Smiley Park waited for a chance to go back up the mountain to save their four Keeshonds and eight cats.
The Keeshonds are show dogs, Walsh said, and she had left work, at Farmer’s Insurance in Crestline, to try to drive back across Highway 18 toward Running Springs to get her pets.
But she was stopped by CHP officers in Skyforest who refused to let her go any further east.
“I told them I would just get my stuff and get out, but they wouldn’t let me,” said Walsh, who had her Pomeranian with her in her car.
“He always goes with me to work,” Walsh said. “He’s the lucky one.”
Walsh drove down the mountain instead, where she met up with Garcia, who had gone to work at Big Bear Marina, when he learned of the Slide Fire, which had forced evacuations.
When Garcia couldn’t get back to Smiley Park, he drove down through Big Bear on Highway 38 and then over to Highway 330, which was also blocked.
Cliff Hurlbert of Running Springs had gone to work in Long Beach at 4 a.m., then turned around and tried to get home up Highway 330 — but couldn’t.
“I’ve been here 30 years — I’ve done this before. If I were there, I’d be concerned,” said Hurlbert.
Hulbert said his wife was at home rounding up two little puppies they had just brought home from Pahrump, Nev.
Still, Hurlbert wasn’t happy about being left to wonder what was happening on the mountain.
“It’s almost like they publicize ‘now is the time’ — with the red-flag fire warnings and high fire danger,” Hurlbert said.
“Now is the time — light it up,” added Lance Labrecque, also of Running Springs.
Labrecque said he knew there was a fire when he headed down the hill that morning to work in Wilmington.
“But I didn’t know it was going to get that bad, or I wouldn’t have gone to work,” he said.
Labrecque said his wife and 17-year-old daughter were at home in Running Springs, loading up things to leave.
Although Bradford said it was too early to say what caused the Grass Valley Fire, he said there were quite a few downed power lines brought down by the fierce winds.
“It’s not as ferocious as the Old Fire,” Bradford said, “but it’s still burning with pretty good intensity.”
Still, Bradford said the mitigation work done by the county fire department to remove bark beetle-killed trees from very steep slopes saved homes today.
The work removing dead trees “saved several hundred homes from this fire,” Bradford said.
— Carolyn Schatz
Mind boggling.
Thanks....excellent feed.
marking
“when are these enviro politicos going to be held to criminal account. Pure obstruction leading to a grossly negligent situation re the unmaintained land.”
Boy! I couldn’t agree more!!! When land burns like this has, it’s not “green”. It’s a tinder box waiting for a match to strike and unfortunately it did.
This Texas family is praying for all of y’all...
Nana
millions of dollars were spent, about 5 years ago, to "study" the situation in the san bernardino mountains, rather than actually DO something to take down the bark beetle damaged trees and underbrush which is one of the reasons there is such a problem now.
even though there were extremely high winds the last few days, the power was NOT shut off up in the mountain communities. consequently it is speculated that fires were started from downed power lines.
mountain folk believe that all the resources are headed for the wealthier homes, rather than the regular folks' homes. the wealthier folks have gone and checked into the 4 seasons.
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