0% CONTAINED
New blaze keeps growing east of L.A.
Ash rained from an apocalyptic sky and officials issued new evacuation warnings Tuesday as foothill communities east of Los Angeles became the latest focus of California's biggest fire season on record.
The Bobcat blaze that erupted Sunday and nearly doubled in size again Monday was listed as 0% contained after it scorched 8,553 acres of the Angeles National Forest north of Monrovia, officials said.
“This is historic,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a Tuesday press conference, summing up the explosion of fires in California since last month. “It's rather extraordinary the challenge that we've faced, again, so far this season.”
He said 42,000 state residents remained under evacuation orders after fires caused by “unprecedented” dry lighting strikes and other factors ripped through parched landscapes amid “extreme” summer heat and wind events.
Newsom said another 164 people were rescued from the Creek Fire south of Yosemite on Tuesday. That was after 214 stranded campers were airlifted from the area of Mammoth Pool Reservoir by National Guard members flying Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters over the holiday weekend.
Newsom lauded the “courage, conviction and grit” of the team that used night-vision goggles to see their way through the thick smoke and evacuate the families and 11 pets trapped by flames.
The Creek Fire was still 0% contained after burning 143,929 acres as of Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
“Extreme events…are now becoming almost normalized out here on the West Coast,” Newsom said. “I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers.”
The two largest fires still burning in the state, the LNU lighting complex fire northeast of Napa and the SCU lighting complex fire east of San Jose, were listed as 91% and 95% contained on Tuesday, but that didn't mean people should let down their guard, Newsom said.
“We still have work to do, particularly with winds coming up,” he said.
In Los Angeles County, officials said incoming Santa Ana winds and ongoing red flag warnings meant some residents of Monrovia, just east of Pasadena, might be forced to flee the Bobcat Fire as it roared through the bone-dry Angeles National Forest.
“We have been told to plan for the fire to get worse and we are asking all residents to be prepared and ready if an evacuation order is issued,” Monrovia city officials said in an advisory posted on the city's website.
“Even when we don't see flames on the hill, the Santa Ana winds can change the fire conditions incredibly quickly,” they said.
While it's still only early September, 2020 already has eclipsed 2018 as the year with the most acres burned across California — more than 2 million — officials and experts said.
“Today 14,000 firefighters are battling 25 major wildfires statewide,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said in a Tuesday Twitter post.
The Valley Fire raging in San Diego County was listed at 17,345 acres and 3% containment, Cal Fire said.
Meanwhile, the El Dorado Fire in San Bernardino County — allegedly caused by a pyrotechnic device used for a gender reveal celebration — reached 16% containment with 10,574 acres burned, officials said.