Humidity Gives Firefighters a Break in 2 Southland Wildfires

Two big Southern California wildfires settled down today, giving firefighters a breather as forecasters warned that cloudbursts might create flash floods in deserts and mountains.

“It’s fairly inactive right now as the humidity goes up,” U.S. Forest Service spokesman Bob Swinford said of a blaze that had crackled across about 3,500 acres of brush and some trees in the San Gabriel Wilderness Area.

The mountain area, part of the Angeles National Forest, is about 30 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The fire began Sunday, apparently when a camper dumped barbecue coals and they ignited the tinder-dry brush, Swinford said.

Sheriff’s deputies convoyed about 10,000 campers from the region to safety after the fire began.

Forest Service spokesman Robert Brady said the fire still is expected to burn for two or three days.

“That’s rugged country,” he said. “It’s hard to get a line around it.”

Northwest of San Bernardino and about 50 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles, a fire that burned about 600 acres of dry brush in Lytle Canyon was expected to be fully contained about 6 tonight, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Olivia Brown.

That fire raced up the wall of a canyon away from homes.

The National Weather Service issued a flash-flood watch through tonight for mountains and deserts in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego and eastern Kern, Inyo and Imperial counties.