Blue Cut fire’s toll adds to already grim season
OAK HILLS, Calif. — The tally of California’s harsh fire season ascended to even grimmer terrain Friday as officials announced that the Blue Cut fire in the Cajon Pass has destroyed nearly 100 homes and more than 200 other structures.
The toll in San Bernardino County caps a week of extensive losses across California, including 300 structures destroyed in Lake County when a wildfire raced through the town of Lower Lake, hammering its downtown area.
In both cases, officials said, the fires ravaged through rural communities on the edges of vast open spaces so quickly that there was little firefighters could do to stop them. They blamed California’s fiveyear drought, which has left brush bone-dry, as well as hot, windy weather conditions.
“They are just moving as fast as the wind can push them and that’s leading to what we’re seeing in terms of devastation,” said Char Miller, a Pomona College professor who’s an expert in wildfires. “Let’s call it an imperfect storm of conditions: the drought, the heat, the low humidity. And let’s be honest, this is not really big winds.”
Miller and other experts said the Blue Cut fire, which erupted Tuesday, is the latest harbinger of what could be a difficult fall, when fierce Santa Ana winds traditionally cause many Southern California wildfires to pick up.
“If this came with Santa Ana, oh my God, this would have been double or triple damage,” Miller added.
According to preliminary estimates released by San Bernardino County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig, 96 homes and 213 other structures such as outbuildings have been destroyed by the fire, which has covered
37,000 acres.
The blaze is 26% contained, up from 22% Thursday evening, prompting officials to lift some evacuation orders and allowing residents to return to their homes. At the peak of the fire, more than 80,000 people were ordered to evacuate.
The property losses were scattered over a wild swath of the Cajon Pass.
The last time Mabel Ramos saw her peachcolored home was through the rear-view mirror of her car as she was pulling out of her driveway soon after the Big Cut fire started. She saw flames as high as a utility pole surrounding her property.
“I was thinking, ‘Our Lord dear father, his son Jesus and the Holy Spirit, please when I leave this gate take care of my house,’ ” she said.
Ramos returned to her home late Thursday afternoon. When she got to the gate, she found the charred Jaguar that she and her husband drove off in after getting married. Then she saw the guest house that she and her husband had built together, now a pile of rubble.
“I cried,” she said. “It was terrible.”
On Friday, she stood in what was once the living room of the guest house. The singed metal frame of a coffee table stood nearby. Other parts of the house survived, including a cast-iron wood stove.
The guest house was special, Ramos said. Her grandmother from El Salvador and family in Canada would stay there whenever they visited. Her son, who lives in Los Angeles, used it as second home.
The shed where she kept her animals also burned down. She lost 135 of her livestock.
“I didn’t have time to even open the door,” she said, stifling tears.
Though the fire is slowly being contained, those whose homes were burned are just beginning to come to terms with the loss.
“We know that there are going to be people who are going to come home to nothing in a fire like this that seemed to burn at will and jump literally a half-mile ahead of itself,” said Hartwig.
“There are also going to be homes that are saved. You scratch your head and wonder why those survived and those that seemed to be positioned better did not.”
The Blue Cut fire came just one week after another major blaze nearby, the Pilot fire.
“It’s been a tough couple weeks for the people of San Bernardino County,” Hartwig said. “It seems like much more than two weeks.”
San Bernardino has seen much more destructive fires in its history. In 2003, the deadly Old fire burned more than 90,000 acres and destroyed nearly 1,000 structures. That fire burned during the heart of the Santa Ana wind season at the same time as several other destructive blazes that have come to be known as the 2003 firestorm.
So far this year, there have been more wildfires in California compared with last year, but they have consumed fewer acres.
Some 3,640 fires erupted between Jan. 1 and Aug. 13 of 2015 and charred 144,645 acres, according to data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. This year, 3,874 fires burned 112,950 acres through Aug. 13. Seven people have died.
The Blue Cut fire continued to be most active in the Gobbler’s Peak area, just south of Wrightwood.
Gusty winds, high temperatures and low humidity are expected to persist and could prolong the challenges that have hampered crews since the blaze erupted.
Although the fire calmed slightly overnight and halted its march north and east, a red f lag warning remains in effect.
Friday afternoon, some signs of progress were evident.
Mandatory evacuations were lifted in several communities, and Caltrans reopened the stretch of Interstate 15 through the Cajon Pass on Thursday.
The route connects Los Angeles and Las Vegas and is a key trucking and commuter route that runs from San Diego, through the Inland Empire and across the Mojave Desert into Nevada.
Its two-day closure had contributed to massive congestion, creating nightmares for travelers and those trying to evacuate.
A portion of Highway 138, another major roadway in the area, also reopened, according to the California Highway Patrol. And with both sides of the 15 reopened, truckers such as Kevin Holladay were able to return to their usual route.
Holladay prayed the flames would calm down, he said — not because of the drive but because of the destruction. His thoughts drifted to residents whose homes and animals were threatened by the wildfire.
Driving through the area, he caught a glimpse of some of the damage left behind.
“I was shocked,” he said. “Stuff you’ve seen for years is gone.”
Down a narrow dirt road off Highway 138 in Phelan, a popular Korean church’s retreat center sat in ruins.
About 10 buildings belonging to the Thanksgiving Korean Church were left in large piles of rubble. Rows of scorched metal chairs remained standing in some buildings. Damaged sinks, stoves and washers in others suggest they may have been used as living quarters.
Jinny Lee, owner of a cafe off Highway 138, walked past one incinerated building after another, trying to remember the one where the actual church services took place.
She looked at the row of charred furniture before her.
“Maybe it’s this building,” she said.
sarah.parvini@latimes.com ruben.vives@latimes.com Parvini reported from Los Angeles and Vives from Oak Hills. Staff writers Joseph Serna and Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.