The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
3 deaths tied to Southern California wildfires
LOS ANGELES — Three people have died at the scene of Southern California wildfires this week, authorities said Saturday, as firefighters aided by diminishing winds beat back a blaze on the edge of Los Angeles that damaged or destroyed more than 30 structures and sent a blanket of smoke across a swath of neighborhoods.
Los Angeles officials said the fire in the city’s San Fernando Valley area hadn’t grown significantly since Friday, and ground crews were tamping down lingering hotspots. Thousands of people remained under evacuation orders, though many were allowed to return home Saturday.
One man who tried to fight the blaze died of a heart attack, and one firefighter reported a minor eye injury.
The fire’s cause is under investigation, and authorities warned that the threat of flareups remained.
At the site of another blaze east of Los Angeles, the Riverside County Sheriff ’s Department said a second body was found at a mobile home park where 74 structures were destroyed Thursday in Calimesa. Officials previously reported one death at the community east of Los Angeles.
The department said one of the Calimesa victims has been identified as 89yearold Lois Arvikson. Her son Don Turner said she had called him to say she was evacuating, but he never heard from her again. Authorities are working to identify the other victim.
Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said the bulk of the fire at the city’s edge had moved away from homes and into rugged hillsides and canyons where firefighters were making steady progress slowing its advance. Television footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the area but no walls of towering flame, as a waterdropping helicopter moved in to dump another cascade on the blaze.
“The bulk of the fire has moved toward wildland,” Humphrey said.
Firefighters worked under sunny skies, but air quality was poor as smoke dispersed over much of greater Los Angeles. Air quality officials urged people to limit outdoor activities.
The forecast called for low humidity — in the 10 percent range — with light wind and an occasional gust up to 15 mph.
East of Los Angeles, firefighters were also gaining ground on a blaze that ripped through a Riverside County mobile home park, destroying dozens of residences. In Northern California, the lights are back on for 98 percent of customers who lost power when Pacific Gas & Electric switched it off in an effort to prevent wildfires.
Some 100,000 residents were ordered out of their homes because of the winddriven wildfire that broke out Thursday in the San Fernando Valley, though authorities began lifting evacuation orders in many areas Saturday. It spread westward through tinderdry brush in hilly subdivisions on the outskirts of the nation’s secondlargest city.