O. C. f ires burn out of control
Wind- driven blazes helped to create the nation’s worst air quality on Tuesday
Two blazes have consumed 27,000 acres and helped create the nation’s worst air quality.
Two wind- driven f ires that forced nearly 100,000 people to evacuate in Orange County continued to burn out of control Tuesday, helping to create the nation’s worst air quality as smoke and ash rained down on many parts of Southern California.
The fierce Santa Ana winds that fueled the blazes eased significantly late in the day, and firefighters hope that could help them get the upper hand after two days of pitched battle defending subdivisions from Yorba Linda to Lake Forest.
Together, the Silverado and Blue Ridge f ires have consumed more than 27,000 acres, but destruction to property has been relatively light.
Officials said 10 homes were damaged in the Yorba Linda area. And by Tuesday afternoon, some of the massive evacuations in Irvine had been lifted.
Even people who live far from the f lames felt the affects of the Santa Ana wind storm, which saw gusts topping 90 mph Monday.
In addition to smoke from the two Orange County f ires, winds carried ash and soot left from the Bobcat fire earlier this month back into the skies, further choking Southern California with bad air.
By Tuesday morning, the government’s air quality monitoring agency had reported that Southern California had the worst air quality in the nation, with parts of Los Angeles and Orange counties and the city of Corona all hovering in the “unhealthy” range. The South
Coast Air Quality Management District issued a smoke advisory for Orange County.
The Silverado f ire broke out shortly after 6: 45 a. m. Monday in the brush country around Santiago Canyon and Silverado Canyon roads. It swept toward Irvine, forcing a large swath of the city’s north side to be evacuated.
By 8 p. m. Tuesday, f iref ighters had achieved 5% containment on the blaze, which had burned through more than 13,000 acres — sparing structures but injuring f ive f irefighters, including two who were critically burned.
Those f irefighters, ages 26 and 31, were placed on ventilators after suffering second- and third- degree burns over half their bodies. They “remain in critical condition, f ighting for their lives, with their families by their sides,” Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy said Tuesday.
Hours after the Silverado f ire ignited, the Blue Ridge f ire erupted in Santa Ana Canyon — a notorious wind tunnel said to have given the blustery Santa Anas their name. The f lames spread quickly as the f ire pushed west toward Yorba Linda, threatening the town’s Hidden Hills community.
By Tuesday evening, the blaze had surpassed its predecessor, engulfing more than 15,000 acres and damaging at least 10 homes. Firefighters had not been able to achieve any containment on the growing blaze.
Marc Church, 63, joined a group of passersby Tuesday who were snapping photos of a canyon burning from the Silverado f ire. The smoke had lessened from the previous day, he said, motioning to the hills, where patches of charred black peeked through the brown haze.
Church lives in Mission Viejo, where he moved a year and a half ago from Irvine because his wife wanted to be closer to the hills. Now, they fear the wind could carry burning embers and
ignite their backyard.
“It’s a risk whenever you move near these hills,” he said.
The family had packed a few boxes of important documents — car titles, birth certificates, bank information — and spent the morning gathering other necessities, including clothes, computers and chargers. They took shifts sleeping and keeping watch overnight, he said, and awoke to voluntary evacuations and the sound of helicopters circling.
“We didn’t get a lot of sleep,” Church said, adding that if the evacuation orders became mandatory, they would load up the car. “If we have to go, we’ll have to go.”
John Lologo, 49, f iddled in his garage in the Yorba Linda neighborhood of Country Hills, which was under voluntary evacuation orders Tuesday afternoon.
Blackened palm fronds had blown in and lined his driveway, and clumps of ash f loated to the ground. In the
distance, three separate smoke plumes billowed from the hills where the Blue Ridge fire was burning.
Lologo said he drove
through Riverside on Tuesday morning and saw f lames leaping over the Chino hills. Soon after he returned home, authorities knocked
on his door to announce voluntary evacuations.
Lologo had planned a trip to Utah to coach a softball game Friday, so his bags were already packed. But he doesn’t expect to leave before then.
“I’m not going to leave until it’s mandatory, and even then, I’ll probably stay,” he said. “I’m far enough away from everything that even if it burns down to the end of the block, I don’t perceive too much happening this side of the street.”
Adriana Cruz and her daughter, Roxana, 11, had to evacuate their Yorba Linda home and stayed in a hotel Monday night. With the two of them and their lumbering dog, Jacqs, kept in his crate, the room was crowded.
The Cruz family brought Jacqs to the O. C. Animal Care shelter in Tustin, which was welcoming evacuees’ small animals. Jacqs would stay Tuesday night while Cruz and her daughter waited to learn more about their neighborhood.
The whole process was confusing, Cruz said while wiping out the dog’s crate with a towel.
As for when the family could return home, Cruz shook her head: “We don’t know.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday said California had received a f ire management assistance grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that will allow the state to receive 75% reimbursements for f irefighting efforts related to the Silverado and Blue Ridge fires.
California is experiencing its worst f ire season on record, with the Orange County f ires adding to the list but still much smaller than many other blazes in 2020.
“We talk in historic terms,” Newsom said, “and I remind you that six of the top 20 wildfires in our state’s history have occurred in 2020.”
More than 4 million acres have burned this year, and wildfires across the state have resulted in at least 30 fatalities, he said.