Fires near Los Angeles: 2 dead, 100,000 evacuations

(Los Angeles) Southern California, and especially the Los Angeles area, had fallen prey to heavy fires since Friday, killing two people and forcing more than 100,000 people to flee, while firefighters warn it they will need at least until Sunday to overcome it.

Updated on October 11, 2019 at 7:04 pm Posted on October 11, 2019 at 9:21 am

David MCNEW
France Media Agency

The most important fire, that of Saddleridge, in the San Fernando Valley, about thirty kilometers from the center of Los Angeles, had started late Thursday night and, brightened by strong winds, quickly became uncontrollable.

Friday night, he had burned more than 3,000 acres and destroyed at least 31 buildings, and was still burning about 300 hectares an hour, according to firefighters.

Despite the forces involved – a thousand firefighters aided by helicopters and planes dropping water and fire retardants – only 13% of the fire was under control.

It was while trying to save his home from this fire that a man in his fifties died of a heart attack.

In this part of the greater Los Angeles suburbs, the authorities have ordered more than 100,000 people to leave their homes, potentially threatened by the fire.

"It's a very dynamic fire. Do not wait to leave, "Los Angeles City Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas told the residents.

"If you stay in the areas affected by these evacuations, we can not ensure your safety," said the head of the Los Angeles police, Michel Moore, asking residents to respect orders and go to emergency shelters set up in the city.

"Prepare for this to happen today, tomorrow and Sunday," said Moore, who deployed 250 officers to enforce the measure.

A hundred kilometers further east, in Calimesa, the fire caused another victim, an 89-year-old woman who died when a fire swept through the mobile home park she was living in, destroying 76 homes. The fire was triggered by the driver of a dumpster whose load had caught fire and which precipitated it on the edge of the road, igniting brush.

Cut current

"It looks like it's becoming the norm in California," said Oscar Mancillas, a resident of Sylmar, staring helplessly at the flames burning the hills near his home.

"The vegetation is so dry, but we are still lucky, because it has not really pushed back since the previous fire," he told AFP.

California is now facing massive fires in winter, a trend that did not exist a decade ago.

"Unfortunately, it's true, the fire season is longer. Before we used to last three or four months, now we have situations like this throughout the year, "said AFP Al Poirier, fire officer of Los Angeles.

In the north of the state, the electricity supplier PG & E had decided on Wednesday of preventive cuts because of weather forecasts conducive to forest fires. Hundreds of thousands of customers, some at the gateway to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, have been deprived of power.

The operator has announced that it has restored electricity for half of the affected customers, but more than 300,000 people remained affected by the cuts on Friday.

Other, smaller, preventive cuts have also been implemented in the south of the state.

Last year in November, three gigantic fires in northern and southern California had ravaged more than 100,000 hectares.

One of them, Camp Fire, had killed 86 people and virtually wiped the small town of Paradise (26,000), where nine out of ten houses were burned. The investigation concluded that the PG & E power lines were the source of the fire.