JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, February 28, 2025

Dangerous winds return to Southern California as new wildfires break out

by

37 days ago
20250121
Firefighters battle the Lilac Fire along Interstate 15 near the Bonsall community of San Diego County, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Firefighters battle the Lilac Fire along Interstate 15 near the Bonsall community of San Diego County, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Noah Berger

Dan­ger­ous winds re­turned to South­ern Cal­i­for­nia on Tues­day as new wild­fires broke out and a pair of ma­jor Los An­ge­les-area blazes burned for a third week, while of­fi­cials made prepa­ra­tions to pro­tect scorched neigh­bour­hoods from tox­ic ash runoff ahead of po­ten­tial rain this week­end.

Fore­cast­ers cau­tioned that gusts could peak at 70 mph (113 kph) along the coast and 100 mph (160 kph) in moun­tains and foothills dur­ing ex­treme fire weath­er that’s ex­pect­ed to last through Tues­day af­ter­noon.

The Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice warned of a “ par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion ” across Los An­ge­les, Ven­tu­ra and San Diego coun­ties due to low hu­mid­i­ty and pow­er­ful San­ta Ana winds. Gusts will ease lat­er in the day, but windy con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed in­to Thurs­day.

Fire en­gines and wa­ter-drop­ping air­craft po­si­tioned across the re­gion al­lowed crews to swift­ly douse sev­er­al small blazes that popped up over the hol­i­day week­end, said David Acu­na, a spokesman with the Cal­i­for­nia De­part­ment of Forestry and Fire Pro­tec­tion, or Cal Fire.

“Our con­cern is the next fire, the next spark that caus­es the next wild­fire,” Acu­na said Tues­day. He said an­oth­er wor­ry was that the two ma­jor blazes, the Pal­isades and Eaton fires near Los An­ge­les, could break their con­tain­ment lines.

Evac­u­a­tion or­ders were is­sued for the Lilac Fire in the San Diego area, which had burned at least 80 acres (32 hectares) of dry brush and was threat­en­ing struc­tures around Bon­sall ear­ly Tues­day, Cal Fire said. Mean­while, crews stopped the for­ward progress of the near­by Pala Fire.

As a small num­ber of res­i­dents were al­lowed to re­turn to the dev­as­tat­ed Pa­cif­ic Pal­isades area, Los An­ge­les May­or Karen Bass is­sued an ex­ec­u­tive or­der Tues­day to ex­pe­dite cleanup ef­forts in burn ar­eas and mit­i­gate the en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pacts of fire-re­lat­ed pol­lu­tants. She or­dered crews to re­move veg­e­ta­tion, shore up hill­sides, in­stall bar­ri­ers and re­in­force roads ahead of pos­si­ble rain this week­end that could cre­ate mud and de­bris flows.

“This is to pre­vent ad­di­tion­al dam­age to ar­eas al­ready rav­aged by fire, and al­so to pro­tect our wa­ter­shed, beach­es and ocean from tox­ic runoff,” Bass said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence.

Bass warned that winds could dis­perse ash and urged An­ge­lenos to vis­it lac­ity.gov to learn about ways to pro­tect them­selves from tox­ic air dur­ing the lat­est San­ta Ana wind event.

Los An­ge­les fire­fight­ers on Mon­day quick­ly ex­tin­guished a small brush fire near the icon­ic Grif­fith Ob­ser­va­to­ry in a sprawl­ing park over­look­ing the city. A man sus­pect­ed of start­ing the fire was tak­en in­to cus­tody, LA po­lice said. Fire crews al­so quick­ly ex­tin­guished a small blaze near Tu­jun­ga and an­oth­er one along In­ter­state 405 in the Grana­da Hills neigh­bour­hood that tem­porar­i­ly closed north­bound lanes.

South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Edi­son said it had pre-emp­tive­ly shut off pow­er to more than 61,000 cus­tomers in five coun­ties to pre­vent winds from top­pling elec­tri­cal equip­ment and spark­ing new fires. The util­i­ty said it was con­sid­er­ing pre­cau­tion­ary shut­offs for an ad­di­tion­al 251,00 cus­tomers.

Au­thor­i­ties urged res­i­dents to re­view evac­u­a­tion plans and pre­pare emer­gency kits, and be on the look­out for fires and re­port them quick­ly.

The low hu­mid­i­ty, bone-dry veg­e­ta­tion and strong winds come as fire­fight­ers con­tin­ue bat­tling the Pal­isades and Eaton fires, which have killed at least 27 peo­ple and de­stroyed more than 14,000 struc­tures since they broke out Jan. 7. The Pal­isades Fire was 61% con­tained and con­tain­ment of the Eaton Fire reached 87%.

For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris and her hus­band Doug Emhoff flew to Los An­ge­les Mon­day af­ter at­tend­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s in­au­gu­ra­tion and met with fire­fight­ers, vol­un­teers and vic­tims of the Eaton Fire in Al­tade­na.

“We just came out to thank (fire­fight­ers), to thank the com­mu­ni­ty and just re­mind folks that we’re all in this to­geth­er,” Har­ris said. She said their home in Pa­cif­ic Pal­isades was still stand­ing.

Trump, who crit­i­cized the re­sponse to the wild­fires dur­ing his in­au­gur­al ad­dress, has said he will trav­el to Los An­ge­les on Fri­day.

Cal­i­for­nia Gov. Gavin New­som on Mon­day said the dev­as­ta­tion left by the fires un­der­scores the need for part­ner­ship be­tween the state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments.

“I look for­ward to Pres­i­dent Trump’s vis­it to Los An­ge­les and his mo­bi­liza­tion of the full weight of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to help our fel­low Amer­i­cans re­cov­er and re­build,” New­som said in a state­ment. —LOS AN­GE­LES (AP)

______

Sto­ry by CHRISTO­PHER WE­BER | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press ra­dio re­porter Julie Walk­er con­tributed from New York.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored