Inland Fire Burns Homes
Two homes were destroyed Saturday by a brush fire that consumed 1,500 acres in a sparsely populated area of Riverside County near Calimesa, fire officials said.
The blaze, reported at 2:30 p.m. north of Interstate 10 near the Cherry Valley Boulevard offramp, threatened 400 homes, said Capt. Julie Hutchinson, spokeswoman for the Riverside County Fire Department.
Residents were not forced to evacuate, but six people sought temporary shelter at the Calimesa Mobile Home Ranch, which county officials opened to those fleeing the smoke.
More than 200 firefighters, supported by six air tankers, three helicopters and 24 engines, had the blaze 50% contained by 7:30 p.m., Hutchinson said.
No one was injured.
“The terrain, combined with the winds, pushed the fire from one side to the other,” she said. “It was totally wind-driven.”
Officials are investigating the cause of the fire, which Hutchinson described as suspicious.
She said it began in a residential area and quickly spread to the hills.
One of the destroyed homes, a weekend retreat with a separate outbuilding, on Singleton Road, had been designated a historic site, part of an old stagecoach trail, Hutchinson said.
The blaze, which burned to the west, closed the Cherry Valley exit, and Calimesa Boulevard was closed between Cherry Valley and Singleton.
Elsewhere, the fresh Santa Ana winds pushed a nearly two-week-old fire in the Santa Clarita Valley westward through the Los Padres National Forest.
The Day fire -- so named because it started on Labor Day -- spread to more than 31,000 acres, jumping across several containment lines cleared by bulldozers, said Maeton Freel, a spokesman for the national forest.
The fire, aided by the winds and 5% humidity, was moving west at up to 2 mph and had entered the forest’s condor sanctuary near Alder Creek.
It was about 12 miles north of the town of Fillmore and not moving toward any developed land, officials said.
Firefighters were expecting continued Santa Ana winds of up to 40 mph today.
Times staff writer Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.
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