2 Riverside County Wildfires Are Slowed

Aided by cooling temperatures, firefighters battling two brush fires that have charred more than 25,000 acres in southwest Riverside County gained a measure of control Wednesday and predicted full containment by Friday morning.

A sparsely populated neighborhood north of Vail Lake remained evacuated Wednesday, but slowing wind and rising humidity helped firefighters build containment lines to protect hundreds of scattered rural homes east of Temecula and south of Corona.

On the third day of this year’s fire season, the 16,460-acre blaze dubbed the Cerrito fire continued to burn south of Corona but was not an immediate threat to nearby communities such as Good Hope, on the outskirts of Perris. Containment of the fire more than doubled from Wednesday morning to evening, to 65%, state fire officials said.

The 8,945-acre blaze east of Temecula, called the Eagle fire, had doubled in size since Tuesday and was moving east along Highway 79, in the rolling hills east of Vail Lake. Firefighters reached 70% containment Wednesday evening and hoped to fully contain the fire today as it approached an area charred by fire four years ago and still with sparse vegetation.

“Not having 30 years of growth over here is an advantage to us,” said Mike Richwine, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The fires have injured 14 firefighters and destroyed 16 homes, including nine cabins that were part of an artists colony in the path of the Eagle fire. It has also destroyed at least 14 outbuildings, such as barns. The cost of battling the blazes could reach $3.4 million or more, forestry department officials said.

An El Cerrito man accused of unintentionally but recklessly starting the Cerrito fire is scheduled to be arraigned May 14, and prosecutors say they will seek to bill him for the entire cost of fighting that fire.

Prosecutors say Richard Drew Brown, 44, was driving a pickup Monday, dragging a large steel plate on Mayhew Road with a chain. The plate’s friction against the pavement created sparks that started the wildfire, according to prosecutors. Brown, who is being held on $25,000 bail, could face a maximum sentence of seven years and eight months in prison.

Authorities said he faces restitution charges of at least $1 million and possibly twice that.

“Why should the citizens of Riverside County have to bear the costs for this man being so stupid?” said Julie Hutchinson, a forestry department captain.

Meanwhile, Riverside County public health officials warned Wednesday that the ash and smoke from the fires had made the air unhealthful throughout the region, particularly for children, senior citizens and those with heart conditions and lung diseases. The officials urged residents in neighborhoods shrouded with smoke to stay indoors.

The fires were among six that broke out as early as last weekend in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties and were stoked by high temperatures and erratic winds. But the weather cooled Wednesday, with heavy morning and evening fog. Even the full moon made it easier for firefighters to battle the blaze into the night.

By Wednesday, firefighters had either extinguished or controlled four of the fires.

“We’ve finally been able to get to a point where, instead of the fire being in out-of-control motion, we are getting a circle and a control line around it,” Hutchinson said. Fire officials said a series of favorable breaks allowed them to slow the fast-moving Cerrito fire, which erupted Monday and raced through dry brush propelled by strong winds.

“The winds calmed through the night, and the temperatures have dipped today by more than 10 degrees, with the humidity rising to 25%. All of that slows the fire and allows us to get better control of it with firefighters not getting so worn out in the immense heat,” Riverside County Fire Capt. David Parks said at the Good Hope firefight scene. “We’ve also been able to pull in more help from elsewhere. The last two days, we’ve been rushing from one side of the fire to the other, depending on need. Today, we’re able to stay in the same place until we get the whole fire out.”

In a battle that defined the firefighters’ success, Katie Hayes, a Good Hope teenager whose home was among the 250 considered the most seriously threatened by the fire, joined her mother, Martha, Wednesday in watching firefighters and helicopters swarm to confront tall flames crawling down a hillside near neighborhood homes.

Before the fire reached a dirt road next to the homes, it was reduced to smoke.

“They hit it real good, and it looks like they’ve got it contained,” Hayes said. “We couldn’t see the flames [Tuesday] night, but by this morning we saw them coming over the hill toward our house, and I was like, ‘Oh, shoot!’ ”

Northwest of Good Hope, crews conducted mop-up work on the Cerrito fire around Lake Mathews, a day after several ranch-style homes and thousands of acres of equestrian property were spared.

Firefighters were reluctant to declare that they had delivered a knockout punch to the fire as they continued to attack the so-called hot spots and smokers in remote areas that could erupt in high winds and again threaten homes.

“The one thing you can’t predict is wind,” said Alex Sperlich of the forestry department.

Burbank Fire Capt. Steve Briggs, called in on the fire Tuesday, acknowledged that on Wednesday he and others “were hopping from place to place with nothing really going on.”

“The initial attack on this fire was real aggressive, and the quick ordering of a lot of extra resources and equipment has made an obvious difference, along with the favorable change in weather conditions,” he said.

Prompted by reports that none of the $120 million in federal funds allocated to remove the fire hazard of dead and dying trees in Southern California had been spent, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) announced efforts Wednesday to speed the delivery of the money. She said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman had agreed to waive a 25% matching fund requirement before local governments can spend the money.

But San Bernardino County fire officials said the county Board of Supervisors was already planning to approve an agreement next week that would let the county spend up to $70 million of the federal allotment to remove trees.

*

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.