Weekend of record heat, wildfires eases for some
LOS ANGELES — A sudden gusty series of rainstorms allowed Los Angeles to cancel evacuation orders for a wildfire that the mayor called the largest in the city’s history and sent beach umbrellas and toy shovels bouncing down Southern California beaches late Sunday.
The rainstorms were another part of a sweltering, smokeshrouded holiday weekend of record heat and of wildfires that had forced thousands to flee homes across the U.S. West.
Other wildfires Sunday forced evacuations in Glacier National Park in Montana and many other parts of the West; compelled crews to rescue about 140 hikers who had spent the night in the woods after fire broke out along the popular Columbia River Gorge Trail in Oregon; and led firefighters to step up efforts to protect a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoia encroached by flames near Yosemite National Park in California.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had declared a local emergency earlier Sunday and Gov. Jerry Brown did the same on the state level for Los Angeles County after the wildfire destroyed three homes and threatened hillside neighborhoods. More than a thousand firefighters battled flames that chewed through more than 9 square miles of brush-covered mountains.
By evening, however, the day’s record heat in Los Angeles had eased and a spate of brief storms even brought a bit of rain to the burning slopes, slowing the progress of the wildfire. Authorities were able to cancel the evacuation orders that had been issued for three cities — Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale — and allow all of the 1,400 people who had fled to return to their homes.
Conditions slowing the blaze could change again “in a moment’s notice, and the winds can accelerate very quickly,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. Ralph Terrazas warned, however. “There is a lot of fuel out there left to burn.”
Officials were keeping an eye on thunderstorms, which were bringing welcome bursts of rain but also the risk of flash floods, mudslides and lightning. Beachgoers in Santa Barbara filmed one sudden storm there that sent palm trees flapping and toddlers chasing beach toys that the wind was blowing down the beach.
The high at Los Angeles International Airport reached 97 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, topping the previous mark of 92, set in 1982. Records were also set in parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where the temperature hit 101 degrees.
San Francisco residents, meanwhile, stifled under a third day of a rare heat wave in the coastal city, although highs in the San Francisco Bay Area fell Sunday from records in the 100s Fahrenheit set the previous two days.
“I went to Home Depot, Walgreens, Office Depot, Target. They were sold out!” downtown office worker Alganesh Ucbayonas said Sunday, detailing her unsuccessful search for an electric fan. “CVS!” she remembered.
On Sunday, Ucbayonas sat at her desk in a building lobby squarely between two whirring fans, both scrounged from her office building’s storage and trained straight at her face.
Fires burning up and down the Sierra Nevada and further to the northwest cast an eerie yellow and gray haze over much of California. Much of the state was under alerts because of poor air quality.
California authorities ordered evacuations for a third small town Sunday in one of the wildfires, a blaze that has burned 9-square-miles near Yosemite.
Firefighters battling that blaze were making it a priority to safeguard the ancient grove of giant sequoia and a pair of historic cabins at the foot of the trees, fire spokeswoman Anne Grandy said.