Fire shuts down the 210
Residents in Burbank at the foot of the Verdugo Mountains were ordered to evacuate late Friday as firefighters struggled to contain a raging wildfire that grew to 2,000 acres.
Those living in the Brace Canyon Park area were ordered to “leave immediately” and head to an evacuation shelter in Sunland, according to an alert issued at 10:35 p.m. by the Los Angeles Fire Department. The order affected more than 100 homes, based on streets identified by Burbank police.
Firefighters were attempting to defend dozens of homes in the area from the approaching flames, according to LAFD spokeswoman Margaret Stewart.
Dubbed the La Tuna fire, the blaze had already forced the closure of a mileslong stretch of the 210 Freeway and threatened dozens of homes in the Tujunga area. Part of the 210 was expected to remain closed through Saturday morning, officials said.
The fire was reported before 1:30 p.m. on the south side of the 210 in the 10800 block of La Tuna Canyon Road on the west side of the mountains, said LAFD spokeswoman Margaret Stewart.
The blaze was initially estimated at an acre or less, but a wind shift about 2 p.m. sent embers flying a quarter-mile north across the freeway, where they landed in dry brush and sparked another fire, Stewart said.
Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said at 5 p.m. that the fire had spread to about 500 acres, and dozens of firefighters were working to halt the flames.
The fire quadrupled in size by 9:30 p.m. Scott described the blaze as “topography-driven,” burning in different directions in the canyons and predominantly heading toward Burbank. It was about 10 percent contained, Scott said.
No injuries or structure damage were reported.
Residents in Haines Canyon and Reverie Canyon were under a voluntary evacuation order, with about 200 households affected, Terrazas said. However, fluctuating winds had diminished the threat to both neighborhoods, fire officials said.
“The winds are continuing to shift, so it’s a very dynamic fire,” Scott said.
An evacuation center was initially set up at Verdugo Hills High School, but officials relocated the shelter to Sunland Recreation Center in the 8600 block of Foothill Boulevard.
Firefighters worked to surround the blaze as helicopters dropped water “to take the heat out of the head of the fire,” Scott said.
Temperatures reached 106 degrees around the fire while gusts of wind blasted over ridge tops at up to 50 mph, said Carol Smith, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service..
“It just really stokes the fire,” Smith said. “I mean, when it’s hot and the gusty winds, it’s been a bad mix of different things.”
At least 350 firefighters and other personnel raced to contain the flames as residents in the nearby canyons stood watch.
Ryan Tanker said he was driving home Friday when he saw the plumes of smoke and phoned his father. James Tanker urged his son to return to their property along Estepa Drive.
The two men loaded a trailer and an RV with their possessions, including a filing cabinet stocked with legal documents and their collection of red wines.
“We’re not savages,” James Tanker quipped.
The Tankers and their neighbors waited outside their homes and watched periodic f lare-ups — mindful that a switch in the wind could force them to evacuate.
The 210 had been shut down from the 118 Freeway to the 2 Freeway.
By 10 p.m., the California Highway Patrol had reduced the closure to a roughly 4 1/2mile stretch. Westbound traffic on the 210 was closed from the 2 to Sunland Boulevard, according to CHP Officer Elizabeth Kravig. Eastbound traffic was closed from Sunland Boulevard to Lowell Avenue.
Earlier, hundreds of cars had been trapped on the westbound lanes for several hours, said LAPD Deputy Chief John A. Sherman, calling it a “very significant traffic problem.”
Officials directed those vehicles to eastbound lanes and onto Foothill Boulevard, Sherman said. By 7 p.m., the vehicles had been cleared from the freeway.
To stem the blaze’s growth, firefighters from Pasadena, the U.S. Forest Service, Burbank, Glendale and the Los Angeles County Fire Department were on the scene.