Moist Air Puts a Damper on Wildfires Around State

Wildfires continued to burn Wednesday after blackening almost 19,000 acres of rugged backcountry in sweltering Southern and Central California, but an invasion of thunderstorms and moist tropical air helped firefighters make headway against several of the blazes.

“The humidity is up, and that’s helping a lot,” said Tyler Ashton, a state Department of Forestry spokesman for the more than 1,300 firefighters battling an 8,500-acre blaze in northern San Diego County. “There’s some rain headed this way, and if it gets here, that would help even more.”

Despite gusting winds and temperatures that continued to hover near 100 degrees, “things are looking real good,” Ashton said.

Full control of the so-called Mataguay fire was expected by this morning, he said. The blaze started as two separate fires at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday near Lake Henshaw and spread rapidly northeast. Investigators said one of the fires was started by a bottle rocket, but they didn’t know who was responsible.

About 200 Boy Scouts had been evacuated from a campground and residents of about 100 rural homes were ordered to leave, but Ashton said the threat had abated by nightfall Wednesday, and everyone was allowed to return.

Heavy rain fell in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs on Wednesday evening, ending the threat that a 3,700-acre fire might spread to the resort communities of Idyllwild and Pine Cove.

Although the blaze was about half contained, officials said flames were continuing to move slowly up steep canyons and ridges, and full containment was not expected for several days.

In Los Angeles County, officials said the Pine fire, along the northwestern edge of the Angeles National Forest near Gorman, was about half contained after scorching about 4,700 acres.

Smoke still hung heavy in the air, but after two days of crackling flames and hard-fought battles to save their homes, 250 residents of the area and the firefighters who joined them appeared to have won their war.

Two days earlier, victory had been far from certain.

Jim Girdlestone, 40, pastor of a Baptist church in Lancaster, had looked up Monday morning from the Craftsman-style home he had recently finished building on a ridge near Pine Canyon Road to see a towering column of smoke.

His wife, Candy, 42, heeded the call to evacuate, but he refused.

“There was no way I was going to go away and see everything I’ve been working for go up in smoke,” Girdlestone said.

Shortly after midnight Tuesday, Girdlestone and a group of Kern County firefighters watched as an advancing wall of fire split and encircled the Girdlestones’ property.

“We had fire coming at us from all sides,” said John Silliman, a Kern County Fire Department battalion chief.

That, Girdlestone said, “was the scariest moment, for sure, for me, ever. I’ve never felt anything so hot.”

Girdlestone started cutting away brush and shoveling dirt to create a fire line.

Silliman’s crews set backfires to deny fuel to the advancing flames. They battled for more than two hours, and in the end, the fire moved on without damaging the house.

“It was like a storm, really tough and loud,” Girdlestone said. “And then it got softer and softer.”

Candy Girdlestone said she didn’t recognize the place when she returned.

“Everything familiar, all the trees, everything, is just gone,” she said. “It looks like the moon. But my house and my husband are still there.”

In Riverside County, a fire started by a discarded cigarette southeast of Lake Elsinore on Wednesday afternoon had charred about 300 acres of brushland. Fire officials said the blaze was about 40% contained. It was about five miles from an earlier fire near the community of Wildomar that was 90% contained after burning about 350 acres.

In the High Sierra of Central California, nine fires started by lightning two weeks ago continued to burn in Yosemite National Park. The largest, called the Meadow fire, had covered about 1,300 acres. Several hikers were evacuated and some trails were closed.

The National Weather Service said temperatures in the 100s were expected again today in the inland valleys of Los Angeles and San Diego counties and throughout Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Thunderstorms were predicted today in the deserts and the San Bernardino, San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains, and forecasters said there still was a slight chance of a thundershower or two in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles.

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Times staff writer Matthew Lopas and Associated Press contributed to this report.