Officials Say Yearlong Bog Fire Is Finally Out
The year-old bog fire is out.
A year after a 10,000-acre wildfire raged in the hills north of Lompoc and ignited the 83 acres of subterranean peat, a stubborn, smoky blaze that defied firefighting efforts for months has ceased. On Wednesday’s one-year anniversary of the blaze, it was finally out--they think.
“Even now, although we say it’s out, the problem is, until this thing either doesn’t surface or resurfaces for sure, nobody knows,” said Darryl D. Parks, deputy of the operations division of the 30th Civil Engineer Squadron at Vandenberg Air Force Base. “There’s no equipment out there that will actually tell us for sure it’s 100% out.
“You determine it’s out by no evidence of fire,” he said. “We have no evidence of fire, so therefore it’s out.”
The bog in an area known as the Barka Slough ranges from a foot to 18 feet deep, and possibly deeper.
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