Wilderness blaze roars back to life
MALIBU — Southern California’s huge wildfire roared to life again Tuesday in a mountain wilderness area even as many neighborhoods were reopened to thousands of residents who fled its advance last week.
A massive plume rose suddenly at midmorning in the Santa Monica Mountains near the community of Lake Sherwood, prompting authorities to send aircraft to drop retardant and water on the blaze.
Forecasters had warned of continuing fire danger in Southern California due to persistent Santa Ana winds, the withering, dry gusts that sweep out of the interior toward the coast, pushing back moist ocean breezes.
Except for an apartment building that burned overnight in coastal Malibu, there was little sign of fire activity elsewhere in the vast fire zone west of Los Angeles.
Officials said their most recent assessments indicated that the fire burned 435 buildings as it spread over about 146 square miles and was 35 percent contained, with full containment expected Thursday.
It was unclear how many people remained under evacuation orders, though at one point the number hit about 250,000. Authorities were expected to disclose details later Tuesday at a news conference.
The dry, gusty winds were expected to blow through Wednesday, although not quite as furiously as last week. Winds, coupled with higher average annual temperatures, tinderdry brush and a lack of rain in recent years, make the “perfect ingredients” for explosive fire growth around the state, said Chris Anthony, a division chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The fire has burned more than 80 percent of National Parks Service land in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, officials said.
Fire officials lifted evacuation orders Tuesday in all or parts of about five communities in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.
But large, populated areas remained off-limits and authorities warned residents of those areas to stay out, saying there were hazards including downed power lines, embers that could reignite, buckled roads and lack of power and communications.
Relief and heartache awaited those who were allowed to return home Monday. Paul Rasmussen, his pregnant wife and their 6-year-old daughter fled their mountainside Malibu home Friday for what they thought would be the last time.
But Monday they learned that their neighbor, Randy Berkeley, had protected his home and the Rasmussens’ house.
The cause of the fires remain under investigation.
Southern California Edison reported to the California Public Utilities Commission “out of an abundance of caution” that there was an outage on an electrical circuit near where the fire started Thursday. The report said there was no indication its equipment was involved in the fire reported two minutes after the outage.