3,500 Acres Charred as Silverado Blaze Spreads

An arson-set fire in the Cleveland National Forest was 40% contained Friday, and firefighters predicted that the swift-moving blaze could be halted in its march through the rugged Santa Ana Mountains by the end of the weekend.

The so-called Silverado fire, which briefly threatened scattered homes in Silverado, Temescal and Bedford canyons in rural Orange and Riverside counties, moved away from populated areas Friday and on through the dense brush to the southeast.

By day’s end, nearly 3,500 acres had been blackened in the Silverado blaze, one of 1,241 fires that have burned more than half a million acres of California forest in the last 13 days.

The blaze, which began in Orange County but burned predominantly in Riverside County on Friday, was expected to be fully contained by Sunday night, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dick Marlow said.

Six helicopters and five air tankers were used Friday to aid ground crews, with a similar number expected to be in the air today, Marlow said.

“It’s not a very exciting show right now,” Forest Service spokesman Tom Horner said. “We’re kind of down to the tedious drudgery. The humidity is up, and the temperatures have gone down, so it’s not burning very vigorously.

“It’s good news in the sense it’s not burning out of control in too great a manner. But we’re trying to control it by burning containment lines, . . . and that doesn’t burn very well either.”

As a result, Horner said, “it takes a lot more time to do the work.”

Meanwhile, lightning-sparked fires in Northern California continued to burn unchecked in the Stanislaus, Klamath, Trinity, Shasta and Mendocino national forests as rain clouds brought the hope of some relief by the weekend.

“The weather’s on our side in terms of keeping the rate of burning down,” said state Forestry Department spokesman John Garland at Klamath National Forest. “But the fires are still burning so fast we can’t get ahead of them.”

In the Silverado blaze, firefighters worked through the night to clear vegetation in the fire’s path, battling the dense brush and steep slopes of the Santa Ana Mountains. By Friday morning, they had cut an eight-mile line around the fire and expected to have the blaze fully contained by 6 p.m. Sunday.

Seven Injured

Fire officials reported injuries to seven firefighters, ranging from minor burns to the broken ankle suffered by a Los Angeles County firefighter.

However, no structures have been damaged, and no evacuations are planned, according to Kathleen Cha, an Orange County Fire Department spokeswoman.

As it continued Friday to move slowly eastward into rural Temescal Valley near Corona in Riverside County, 1,125 firefighters fought the blaze.

So far, costs to fight the fire have exceeded $285,000, Cha said, not counting thousands of gallons of fire retardant chemicals dropped by aircraft.

Fire officials confirmed Thursday that the fire was the work of an arsonist, but they refused to confirm a published report that an arsonist was seen fleeing the area where the Silverado fire had been set, as well as a second fire about a mile away near Maple Spring Road.

The report described a suspect in his late 20s or early 30s with shoulder-length hair, reportedly driving a 1985 or 1986 Toyota pickup truck.

“We can’t confirm that now, not from our standpoint,” said Dick Marlow, a Forest Service spokesman. “The only valid information approved for release about this incident is that the cause of the fire was arson.”

Event Curtailed

Ironically, the Forest Service’s “Take Pride in America” campaign in the Cleveland National Forest, a day of scheduled cleanup activities, was supposed to take place today. Those activities will be curtailed, Forest Service officials announced.

Officials also announced the weekend closure of Irvine Regional Park, which is being used as a headquarters for emergency fire personnel.

Those who have horses at the stables may contact the Forest Service or the Orange County Fire Department for admission to the park, officials said.

In Northern California, fires had devastated 865 square miles by Friday, with nearly a quarter of the burned acreage in the Klamath forest, where about 6,000 firefighters are still battling 159 fires.

Fire officials said the Klamath fires were roughly 40% contained, with 250 miles of fire lines around the perimeters of the blazes.

But the biggest complex of fires in the state continued to be in the Stanislaus National Forest, where 128,000 acres of timber have burned.

78,00 Acres Burned

In the Mendocino National Forest, two of the three major blazes remained out of control, burning 78,500 acres.

In the Shasta-Trinity area, where 71 fires continue to burn, 68,090 acres have been blackened.

Gov. George Deukmejian on Friday declared a state of emergency for Colusa and Del Norte counties, bringing 24 of the state’s 58 counties within the designation.

The latest rash of fires in California have caused 99 injuries and destroyed 98 structures, including 39 homes. Three firefighters have died in automobile accidents, two of them caused by heavy smoke.