Firefighters Battle Heat, Flames

Erratic winds and temperatures above 100 degrees hampered firefighters as they battled wildfires that had burned more than 16,400 acres Tuesday in the hills and mountains of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties.

Although no homes were burned, more than 1,000 residents and campers were evacuated. The heat wave was expected to continue until the weekend, and there was no prediction when the three largest fires would be controlled.

The Los Angeles County blaze continued to expand after blackening more than 4,500 acres and forcing the evacuation of more than 80 homes in the Pine Canyon area of the San Gabriel Mountains between Gorman and Lake Hughes.

“This is a very dangerous, very erratic fire that’s still advancing,” said Capt. Mark Whaling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

A firefighter returning home to Lancaster was killed Tuesday morning when his vehicle crashed. He was identified as Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Daniel Elkins, 47. Further details were not available.

Whaling said the blaze, dubbed the Pine fire, could burn for days along the rugged northwestern border of the Angeles National Forest, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles. The fire, which started Monday beside Pine Canyon Road, apparently was man-caused, but fire officials didn’t know whether it was deliberate.

More than 500 firefighters from seven agencies were deployed against the fire, which was one-third contained.

Janne Lank, 78, and her husband, Jim, 82, were among those at a Red Cross evacuation center in Holiday Valley, a few miles from the heart of the fire. She said that when the flames began to shoot skyward near their home in Pine Valley on Tuesday morning, they realized it was time to go.

“It was like a giant campfire,” she said. “We grabbed our prescriptions and the pictures of our grandkids, and we left.”

In the steep San Jacinto Mountains near Palm Springs, a blaze that had briefly threatened the rural enclave of Snow Creek was almost half contained after scorching about 3,100 acres, officials said.

Water-dropping helicopters and ground crews were able to stop the fire from spreading to forests ravaged by the bark beetle in the San Jacinto Wilderness Area, but there was no prediction of containment.

As temperatures topped out at 110 degrees on the valley floor below, about 300 firefighters armed with hand tools, chain saws, water and sun block were airlifted to smoldering hot spots on the mountain ridgelines.

“It’s a much cooler 98 degrees up there on the fire lines,” Los Angeles County firefighter Thad Thomas said with a wry grin before being airlifted onto the mountain.

Because of the extremely rugged terrain, “almost everything going to and from the fire lines -- firefighters, Gatorade and equipment -- has been flown in by helicopter,” said Cliff Boyd, heliport manager for the California Department of Forestry.

“That hasn’t been easy,” Boyd said. “There are few places to land a helicopter up there, and it’s too risky to even try in many cases because of the winds.”

Officials said the Palm Springs fire started Monday near a power-generating windmill farm in Banning Pass and spread rapidly up the mountains on the south side of the pass. One firefighter suffered a broken leg, and three were treated for heat exhaustion.

In northern San Diego County, two blazes known collectively as the Matagual fire broke about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday south of Lake Henshaw and spread rapidly northeast, burning about 8,500 acres by nightfall.

Investigators said one of them was started by a bottle rocket, but they didn’t know who set it.

Two hundred Boy Scouts were evacuated from a campground, and residents of about 100 homes in the rural town of Ranchita were ordered to leave. An evacuation center was set up at the Red Cross center in Borrego Springs. Two outbuildings were burned, and several local roads were closed.

The Matagual fire was burning “side by side, mirror images,” separated by about a mile, said California Department of Forestry spokesman Daniel Hermes.

He said the twin fires were “really aggressive, moving really fast through heavy fuel, lots of dry chaparral.”

About 2:15 p.m. Tuesday, a fire broke out east of Interstate 15 near Lake Elsinore and began moving rapidly toward a group of houses and commercial buildings near the community of Wildomar. People in about 250 homes and businesses were ordered to leave, and an evacuation center was set up at a high school in Menifee.

Thanks to a big helicopter carrying 3,000 gallons of water, all the buildings were saved, said Rick Vogt, a Forestry Department captain.

“With two very effective drops, that helitanker took the steam out of a major flank of the fire,” Vogt said.

Breezes slackened at nightfall, and officials said the Lake Elsinore fire should be fully controlled by this morning.

The National Weather Service said the hot weather was expected to continue through Friday, with temperatures above 100 in the inland valleys of Los Angeles and San Diego counties and much of western Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Forecasters said there was a good chance of thunderstorms today and Thursday in the mountains and deserts of San Diego and Riverside counties, and a slight chance of one or two thundershowers in Southern California’s coastal valleys.

That’s both good and bad news for firefighters. Rain and increased humidity from the storms could dampen the blazes, but lightning strikes could start new fires.

Near the Pine fire Tuesday evening, about 30 cars were parked along the shoulder of California 138, crammed with household belongings salvaged as the flames advanced.

Bruce Cobeen, 47, said he decided to leave his home after staying up all night, watching the situation deteriorate.

“I got my dog, my cat, my stereo, my clothes and my toothbrush,” he said.

Nancy Dillon, her daughter, Coryanne, and their pug sat patiently in their sport utility vehicle.

“I took everything important with me,” Nancy Dillon said. “Now we’re just waiting.”

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Times staff writers Eric Malnic and Zeke Minaya contributed to this report.