Brush Fire Jumps Highway In So Cal

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Developing

[BarbaRosa]

1. At least 8 vehicles on fire

per msnbc

[villager]

30. I've never heard of cars on the freeway catching fire from a wildfire before this

Have I just missed it?

Usually the freeway is shutdown and cars back up. Did this fire move so fast the flames whipped into the cars?

Are the people OK?

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. It is extremely rare but it does happen

this moved very fast. It's gone from 30 acres to 2000-3000 in less than two hours. They have no cause and this is still rapidly spreading.

[villager]

34. Is it windy out there, or just tinder-dry?

The latter, after a half-decade drought, would probably be enough...

[nadinbrzezinski]

37. Both and my educated guess from scanner traffic

it is creating it's own wind patters already.

From the video it seems to be spotting ahead of the fire as well.

[villager]

39. Oy. At the point where it's making its own "weather" already?

Not boding well for the small hamlets and burgs nearby ...

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. My other question is... in San Diego Air copter 1 and 2 have night time

capability. I know CAL FIRE does not, or for that matter the USFS... I wonder if any of the San Bernardino types do. In San Diego it took three major fires for somebody to get that.

Flying at night is that much more dangerous, but during the May fires last year it helped, a LOT.

I know I will be on scanner duty for hours today.

30 percent contained.

[villager]

42. 30 percent contained?

Well that's good. First I've heard there was any containment..

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. My ear is on a bloody scanner

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. And that has been walked back per LA Times

Soumya Karlamangla ?@skarlamangla 34m34 minutes ago
U.S. Forest Service spokesman tells me #NorthFire isn't contained at all. Several cars and structures already damaged http://lat.ms/1CHrIIJ

Not that I am shocked or surprised watching the video.

[petronius]

2. Wow, I-15 in the Cajon Pass - with a couple of cars caught by the flames

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-fire-in-cajon-pass-20150717-story.html

Hope nobody was planning to go to (or come from) Vegas this evening...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. I have been on that road several times as my gf's gf lives in Vegas.

SIGH

[petronius]

18. When we were kids we used to like pulling over to watch freight trains

right there in the pass (although I can't for the life of me remember why we drove all the way out there, except maybe to watch trains... )

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. We don't have a car but we rent one to go to Vegas.

It's a boring ride so we always get satellite.


Also, no bathrooms!!!

[sufrommich]

3. We're watching it on CNN right now. Holy shit. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Here the link

and since this is LA, I guess it is fine. If it was my background we would be on the way to a fire, and no post here.

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/30-Acre-Brush-Fire-Shuts-Down-15-Fwy-at-Cajun-Pass-316347791.html?F

[countryjake]

7. Almost a jinx! Been watching these cars ignite for half an hour, now.

There are fire fighters now attempting to get a fire hose down to where the majority of vehicles are burning.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. I am watching the water drops

from NBC on my computer.

This is tender dry.

No wonder this has gone national

Some of the jargon, they have requested a VLAT (very large air tanker, translation DC 10), They have also declared an MCI, multiple casualty incident. And my online scanner is off for maintenance. (Hand held would not reach)

http://hotlist.wildlandfire.com/threads/47281-CA-BDF-North

[countryjake]

19. It's the same way up here in WA, tinder dry, wild fires everywhere...

barely any rain since June 1st, after an unusually dry Winter and Spring.

Our Evergreen state is brown and burning.

I was just explaining to someone yesterday why they have to close down traffic on the highways when a brushfire breaks out near a road.

Watching stuff like this scares the shit out of me...we've got buckets of water sitting all around outside, fixed every old hose we've got to give us more reach, just in case. Living surrounded by woods is cool until it stops raining.

I feel so bad for those poor fire fighters. Did you see them trying to drag that hand-crew line up to the burning cars?

It's just too damn hot!

Here comes the Ten Tanker!

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Here is a file picture from the Chariot fire of that DC 10

?w=300&h=199

I hoped I would never have an opportunity to use it again. Oh well. Scanner is on, my app is back on line

Evacuations are getting wider.

[GP6971]

28. Same here

I back up to green belt (no longer that green) and wildlife refuge in south Puget Sound. It's way too dry and looks like it's going to stay dry.

[countryjake]

33. KOMO news said today that high temps & dry conditions here til Oct 2016.

I think that's wishful thinking, myself. This isn't the first drought we've had lately, up here in Skagit County. We went 86 days without rain back in 2012 and fire season that year was disastrous. But never before has it come so early.

I'm out in the boonies, the foothills, and two weeks ago when it was up to 95 degrees, the air was totally filled with smoke, it was hard to do anything outdoors...we were surrounded by wildfires from up in BC and the North Cascades and smaller brushfires all over the county.

My landlord laughed at my lineup of water buckets last month, but he cut the pasture this week and came hollering when he was halfway thru, grabbing half of that water to put out a fire that the muffler on his tractor started.

There's a herd of Elk who drink from my buckets early every morning...if you're next to a refuge, try setting out some water for them to see what shows up. All the critters are really suffering from this heat.

[GP6971]

38. Yep, the deer

are at my water fountain every day. We always make sure to keep it full.

[malaise]

10. This is scary

Stay safe folks

[2naSalit]

46. Cajun Pass?

I wonder who their script/coding writer is... the link has Cajon spelled wrong...

wrong dialect. Although I admit that as a teenager when first encountering SoCal, I thought it was pronounced wuite differently.

Just sayin'



Quite familiar with that stretch of road, glad I missed that episode. It's bad enough bringing a semi-truck up or down that one with all the traffic and a scalehouse near the bottom that you have to stop at, Santa Ana winds make that a nightmare too but a fire that sets vehicles on fire just takes the cake.

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. Well you know the drill

I am stuck on the scanner.

I turned that off for a half an hour, as it seemed we might have our own, far south on the 15

Good news. Rate of spread stopped.

[2naSalit]

49. Yup...

back when I lived in SoCal/San Diego we had some nasty fires, and then we got "smoked out" a few times by bad fires in Mexico. My smokejumper buddies up here are mostly up in Alaska, have been for about a month now. My neighbor is due for his mandatory break soon, not a jumper but still "working" the fires. DC10s are becoming the norm as the P2Vs are getting too old to do the job... DC10s carry a significantly greater amount of "mud" to dump on each sortie, the neighbor talks about them a lot.

Hope they get this one out soon. Happy listening and thanks for the info! I have get up at 4am every day so I can't stay online much until my tour is over in November.

Later,

2na

[countryjake]

6. live video, here...

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/30-Acre-Brush-Fire-Shuts-Down-15-Fwy-at-Cajun-Pass-316347791.html

Ten cars and a boat, plus a car-carrier-semi have now exploded into flame. Helicopters doing water-drops.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. So dry out here in SoCal

I've lived here since 1970 and I don't think I've ever seen it this dry, this long although extreme dryness also led to the Great Fire Of Laguna Beach of 1993 that destroyed nearly 400 homes and burned a swatch from Laguna Beach to Irvine, California. This is a desert and yet people are absolutley packed like sardines as if this was a lush tropical environment.

[KamaAina]

12. It is not a desert. SoCal's climate is semi-arid.

The only true deserts in California are the Mojave and a few patches of high desert in the northern Sierras.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. To me it's a desert

I stopped watering my lawn more than a year ago to do my part. Nothing grows except desert plants. It's barely rained in several years. I don't know what it's officially called and if it's, as you describe, a "true" desert, but to me it's most certainly a desert. Anyone who saw how arid it is now in SoCal would call it a desert.

[KamaAina]

16. Desert planets?

Like Mars?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

17. Too late for you my friend

I spotted my laughable mistake and corrected it

[KamaAina]

11. And so it begins.

They've been promising us disastrous fire seasons since the drought began. So far other factors have helped to keep the fires more or less in check. Until now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. It has not stopped

last year we had monster fires in San Diego in MAY...

We now consider ourselves on alert for major fires 24\7\365

[villager]

29. And September and October are yet to come...

Uh oh.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Don't remind me

the scanner is truly nuts...

I am glad I have the skill to listen to it. Their comms are combined police and fire. So it is more "fun."

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. This is the area map

http://www.arcgis.com/apps/PublicInformation/index.html?appid=0c12ac1e89c24075a2be145f4db6caf5&extent=-117.7320,34.1595,-116.9870,34.5275

[House of Roberts]

21. Man. They fly that DC-9 tanker like a cropduster!

That is some flying.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. We have seen them at major fires. It is an impressive site

I posted one of our file photos from the Chariot fire.

[countryjake]

22. Fire now up to 2000 acres, mandatory evacuations in Baldy Mesa area.

Cajon Pass, California, 15 Freeway Fire.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. This is a file picture of the DC 10

the VLAT

?w=300&h=199

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Victorville Fair grounds for large animal shelter

and they are getting volunteers.

A little more 2000-3000 acres from Air estimates, this will change as they get this corralled and get people with actual GPS walking the perimeter, so this is the estimate from air personnel. What worries me from radio is the changing wind, (creating it's own weather likely), and the fact that this is still very rapid rate of spread.

[udbcrzy2]

26. Live video

ABC7 live video
http://abc7.com/live/

[Sienna86]

35. Watching it live on Chris Hayes

During his week of shows from California, discussing the drought and its effects.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. 3500 acres

SB County Fire ?@SBCOUNTYFIRE 49s49 seconds ago
#NorthFire (Update) 3,500 acres, 20 vehicles destroyed 10 damaged on I15. #SBCoFD dozers & crews active on incident pic.twitter.com/RkJz2WueZc

[shanti]

41. another fire burning in nor cal too

near coloma, off i-49.

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. 30 percent contained

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. Inciweb data

INCIDENT UPDATED 15 MIN. AGO
Approximate Location

34.339 latitude, -117.478 longitude




Map data ©2015 Google
Terms of Use
Report a map error



Map
Satellite
2 km
Incident Overview

The North Fire started at about 2:33 pm on Friday July 17 near Interstate 15 north of Highway 138. It is approximately 3,500 acres in size.

Mandatory evacuations in Baldy Mesa for areas: East of Sheep Creek Road
North of Hwy 138
West of I-15/Hwy 395
South of Phelan Road

Evacuation Center is Serrano High School 9292 Sheep Creek Rd, Phelan

Both northbound and southbound Interstate 15 are closed. Motorists are advised to avoid the area if possible.

There have been no injuries. Multiple vehicles on Interstate 15 caught on fire when the North Fire crossed southbound lanes. 20 vehicles were destroyed, 10 damaged
Fire is in unified command with San Bernardino County Fire, CALFIRE, and San Bernardino County Sheriff.

Resources responding include: 22 engines
2 crews
2 water tenders
1 dozer
1 air attack plane
1 lead plane
3 helicopters
6 fixed wing tankers


Basic Information
Current as of 7/17/2015, 5:55:36 PM
Incident Type Wildfire
Cause Under Investigation
Date of Origin Friday July 17th, 2015 approx. 02:33 PM
Location Cajon Pass, Baldy Mesa
Incident Commander Howes
Incident Description Unified Command With Calfire, San Bernardino County Fire, And San Bernardino County Sheriff
Current Situation
Size 3,500 Acres
Fuels Involved
chaparral
Significant Events
Mandatory evacuations: East of Sheep Creek Road, North of Hwy 138, West of Hwy 395 and I-15, South of Phelan Road
Outlook
Remarks
Evacuation Center is Serrano High School 9292 Sheep Creek Rd, Phelan
Current Weather
Weather Concerns
95 degrees, 14% humidity, winds 20 mph from the south
UNIT INFORMATION
USFS Shield
San Bernardino National Forest
U.S. Forest Service
602 S. Tippecanoe Avenue
San Bernardino, CA 92408
INCIDENT CONTACTS
Call Center
Phone: [phone]
more contacts »
INCIDENT COOPERATORS
Calfire
California Dept. of Transportation
San Bernardino County Fire Department
San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services
San Bernardino County Sheriff'S Department
FOLLOW THIS INCIDENT
Twitter Feed
Article RSS Feed
Google Earth Network Feed
help »
SHARE THIS
Twitter
Facebook
Digg
Del.icio.us
StumbleUpon

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. Satellite image from the fire

[bemildred]

51. Wind from the south.

That will help keep it out of the mountains, there are a lot of dying trees up there.

[nadinbrzezinski]

53. This is going to be days

I have a wonderful gay pride parade in the morning. I am about to just turn the radio off. It is not like i am going to go there (too far north).

[nadinbrzezinski]

50. Shit, the earlier report of some containment is not

Soumya Karlamangla ?@skarlamangla 34m34 minutes ago
U.S. Forest Service spokesman tells me #NorthFire isn't contained at all. Several cars and structures already damaged http://lat.ms/1CHrIIJ

And yes, I have seen this in the past, so this does not particularly surprise me. Hopefully during the night (they should), be able to get some containment. During the night fires tend to go down in intensity. They are terrifying beasts, but...

[PasadenaTrudy]

54. There were as many as 5 drones

up in the air around the fire. This delayed crews. Idiots and their drones!

[nadinbrzezinski]

55. 5 percent contained per inciweb this morning

[nadinbrzezinski]

56. 45 percent

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4395/