Weather Gives Firemen a Break in North; New Southland Blazes Flare

Cooler temperatures and higher humidity readings gave fire crews the upper hand in Northern California on Thursday, but it was a different story in the Southland as flames burned unchecked in a remote canyon in the Angeles National Forest and new blazes erupted near Malibu, Newhall and in Riverside County.

Some mobile homes were threatened by the fire that broke out on the west side of Interstate 5 south of Newhall shortly before 2 p.m. then jumped the freeway. But the Los Angeles County Fire Department quickly had 30 engine companies and five camp crews at the scene, holding the fire to about 300 acres.

About 150 residents of a mobile home park at Calgrove Boulevard and The Old Road were evacuated for a time.

A fire that may have been started by lightning only a few minutes earlier burned through about 160 acres near Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Canyon Road in the Santa Monica Mountains north of Malibu, but no structures were threatened, officials said.

There was a smattering of smaller brush fires, including one that charred four acres near the San Diego Freeway and Moraga Drive in Sepulveda Pass. In Riverside County, a 350-acre brush fire near Lake Hemet 50 miles southeast of Riverside prompted the evacuation of 400 Girl Scout campers and residents of 75 homes.

Devil’s Canyon Fire

And in the Devil’s Canyon region of the San Gabriel Wilderness Area, about 12 miles north of Monrovia, a lightning-caused fire that had been spotted Wednesday afternoon was growing and U.S. Forest Service spokesperson Susan Marzec said, “It looks dangerous. It has potential.”

She said nearly 190 members of hand crews assigned to hike into the fire could not reach it Wednesday night because of the rugged terrain and had to camp at the canyon’s edge until Thursday morning.

They then began backfiring in an effort to keep the blaze from crawling over the ridge and threatening Angeles Crest Highway. Six military air tankers flew over the canyon dropping flame retardant.

As tropical depression Guillermo pushed moist air northward, leaving Southern California with dropping humidity and new brush blazes, weather conditions were favoring firefighters in Central and Northern California.

Nevertheless, U.S. Army officials said 1,000 6th Army troops would be made available to help take the strain off the estimated 17,000 firefighters battling conflagrations throughout the state. The U.S. Forest Service said teams of instructors were flying to Ft. Ord in Northern California to begin training two infantry battalions in firefighting.

Despite the cooler temperatures of Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters were not offering much hope that the weather would remain favorable.

“Our fire weather reports say hot, dry weather with dry lightning,” said Pauline McGinty of the All Western States Inter-Agency Fire Center at Boise, Ida. “Southern California will receive lightning also and we really don’t want to hear that.”

Some residents were allowed to return to the homes they had to evacuate Monday when the arson-set Lexington Reservoir fire began sweeping across nearly 14,000 acres near Los Gatos in the Santa Cruz Mountains. About 4,500 people had been ordered to leave.

Heavy clouds and some light rain enabled containment of at least half of that blaze, authorities said.

Not all neighborhoods were considered safe, however, and some Aldercroft Heights homeowners clashed with law enforcement officers in their eagerness to return. A 49-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of assault and resisting an officer after she allegedly rammed her car into a California Highway Patrol car that was blocking her way.

Six aerial tankers were still flying sorties and ground crews were still working to keep the flames away from Loma Prieta Mountain, where the blaze would have a chance to run free across long stretches of brush.

“The weather is really giving us a break,” said Jim Bliss of the California Department of Forestry. “We’re throwing in everything we can. . . . But we still have to go through one day of warm weather to see how successful we were.”

Nearly a dozen homes were reported burned.

Governor Tours Area

Gov. George Deukmejian toured the Los Gatos fire zone. As he has done in the cases of several other California blazes, he has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Lexington Reservoir arsonist.

He also said he was creating a special arson task force to deal with the statewide rash of brush fires. More than 310,000 acres in California have been blackened since July 1 by fires, many of them apparently incendiary.

Cooler weather also aided firefighters along the scenic coastline south of Big Sur, where the Rat Creek fire was being held to about 16,600 acres and was 20% contained by Thursday morning. On its northern edge, where raging flames were fought by military air tankers on Wednesday, the front was reported “holding well” with more than 70 engine companies from many parts of California protecting 30 structures.

“As long as the weather holds. . . ,” California Department of Forestry spokeswoman Tess Albin-Smith said hopefully. “Pray for rain.”

Two Homes Destroyed

At least two homes were reported destroyed when the fire’s southern edge swept through the small Monterey County coastal village of Lucia on Wednesday.

The Gorda fire, south of the Rat Creek blaze, also was 20% contained after burning about 4,000 acres.

Also in Monterey County, the 34,000-acre King City area brush fire was 60% contained by 650 firefighters.

In Ventura County, the massive Wheeler Springs fire was 74% contained after burning 92,800 acres, although there were some hot spots in the Jameson Lake and Cherry Creek areas.

North of San Francisco, the cooler weather led to 100% containment of two Lake County fires that had burned eight homes. And firefighters stopped a blaze apparently started by brake sparks from a railroad engine in a steep Eel River canyon of Mendocino County.