Lake Arrowhead focus shifts to Twin Peaks and Crestview

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Lake Arrowhead:

Crews patrolled the Grass Valley fire’s eastern flank Tuesday night and were able to protect homes in and around Lake Arrowhead. There was very little activity -- mostly smoldering trees, said Capt. Frank Davis of the California Department of Forestry.

Firefighters were aided by lighter winds and the work that fire crews had done since the Old fire in 2003 -- thinning timber and other fuels around the residential borders of Lake Arrowhead, Davis said.

“This is absolute proof that what we’re doing works,” said Randy Clauson, division chief for the U.S. Forest Service in the Mountaintop Ranger District of the San Bernardino National Forest.

“This could very well have been several thousand homes lost based on the fuel conditions [before the timber thinning]. We would not have been able to stop the fire,” Clauson said.

“The good story is that we haven’t lost any structures on the Grass Valley fire in 24 hours,” Davis said. “There were no major fire runs on Grass Valley yesterday or last night.”

Firefighters are still concerned about the homes south of Lake Arrowhead in Twin Peaks and Crestview, but they are not immediately threatened, he said.

The most active flank of the fire -- the western perimeter -- is moving into a wilderness area.

“The whole western flank is still open. It’s backing down the hill toward the west, but no structures are threatened,” Davis said.

-- Maeve Reston