Wildfire News 2024

[Wrightwood]

Smoke Outlook
California-South Central

https://outlooks.airfire.org/outlook/e18c7d17

[Wrightwood]

Incident Website:
inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/caanf-bridge-fire

Fire Information: (626) 662-0120
Media Line: (626) 470-1395
Hours: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Email: 2024.Bridge@firenet.gov

Fire Size: 54,795 acres
Percent Contained: 65%

Personnel: 1,910
Injuries: 5
Structures Damaged: 17
Structures Destroyed: 81
Cause: Under investigation
Location: Sheep Mountain Wilderness, San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

[Wrightwood]

Bridge Fire Operational Update September 21, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyAWB6gGrMA

[Wrightwood]

Start Date: September 8, 2024, at 2:12 p.m.       
Incident Website:
inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/caanf-bridge-fire

Fire Information: (626) 662-0120
Media Line: (626) 470-1395
Hours: 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Email: 2024.Bridge@firenet.gov

Fire Size: 54,877 acres
Percent Contained: 69%

Personnel: 1,799
Injuries: 5
Structures Damaged: 17
Structures Destroyed: 81
Cause: Under investigation
Location: Sheep Mountain Wilderness, San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

CURRENT SITUATION: Today, firefighters will continue mop-up efforts across the fire, strengthening containment lines and felling hazardous trees to improve public and crew safety. Interior smoke may be visible in areas of the fire; this is expected with the current warming and drying weather trend, and crews will investigate smoke and extinguish isolated heat sources. Crews on the west flank will focus on constructing indirect line from Rattlesnake Peak north and from Mount Baden Powell south – tying in containment lines at Mount Hawkins. On the south flank, aircraft will drop water and fire retardant again today on the remaining open portion of line to get assist chew with containment. An Unmanned Aircraft System with infrared thermal imaging capability will also be used in the south to aid in identifying heat signatures.

Members of the public returning to fire-impacted areas in and around Wrightwood are asked to return any fire equipment found on their properties to San Bernardino County Fire Station 14 at 5980 Elm St., Wrightwood, Calif., 92397. Please do not take items to Wrightwood Elementary School.

A Forest Order closed portions of the Angeles National Forest on Sept. 21, 2024. The order closing the Bridge Fire area is available in local U.S. Forest Service offices and online at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/angeles.

Damage inspection teams have completed their inspections. Residents affected by the Bridge Fire can find information on the following websites:
For San Bernardino County: prepare.sbcounty.gov/bridge-fire/
For Los Angeles County: recovery.lacounty.gov/bridgefire/

Local Assistance Centers:
Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties are working together to provide assistance to residents affected by the recent Bridge and Line fires. The purpose of the LAC is to provide a one-stop center where individuals, family members, and business owners may obtain information on services and assistance needed because of a disaster or damage to personal property.

https://recovery.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Bridge-and-Line-Fire-LAC-Final-Updated.pdf

For interactive maps on evacuations:
    Los Angeles County: Genasys Protect website or download the app. https://protect.genasys.com 
    San Bernardino:  https://sbcounty.maps.arcgis.com
For emergency alerts, please register here: 
    Los Angeles County: https://ready.lacounty.gov/emergency-notifications/ 
    San Bernardino County: https://wp.sbcounty.gov/sheriff/alerts/ 
Animals:
·       Devore Animal Shelter: 19777 Shelter Way, San Bernardino, CA. (909) 386-9820. After hours: (800) 472-5609
·       San Bernardino County Fairgrounds: 14800 Seventh Street, Victorville, CA
·       Palmdale Animal Care Center (Small Animals): 38550 Sierra Hwy, Palmdale, CA
·       Lancaster Animal Care Center (Small Animals): 5210 W Ave I, Lancaster, CA

ROAD CLOSURES:
    Eastbound Big Pines Highway at Largo Vista Road (residents only)
    Big Rock Creek Road at Fenner Canyon Road

    Mescal Creek Road at Mescal Canyon Road
    SR-39 at the base of San Gabriel Canyon (residents only)
    Glendora Mountain Road north of Big Dalton Canyon Road
    Glendora Ridge Road from Mt. Baldy to Glendora Mountain Road
    SR-2 at SR-39
    SR-2 Flume Canyon Road westbound         

Additional closures may still be in place on roads managed and maintained by other agencies inside the forest. Most major roads in the Angeles National Forest are not managed or maintained by the Forest Service. We recommend also checking CALTRANS (https://roads.dot.ca.gov/), the Los Angeles County Road Closures list (https://dpw.lacounty.gov/roadclosures/) and the San Bernardino County Road Conditions (https://dpw.sbcounty.gov/operations/road-closures/) list for updates.

WEATHER:
The warming and drying trend in the area continues; the marine layer is expected to dissipate by early to mid-week, dropping relative humidities and contributing to elevated fire danger. Then warmer, drier weather will likely last through the month's end.

[Wrightwood]

Start Date: September 8, 2024, at 2:12 p.m.

Fire Size: 54,877 acres
Percent Contained: 71%
Personnel: 1,056
Injuries: 5
Structures Damaged: 17
Structures Destroyed: 81
Cause: Under investigation
Location: Sheep Mountain Wilderness, San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

[tcaarabians]

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-09-23/bridge-fire-wrightwood-wildfire-protection-home-hardening

[Wrightwood]

Opinion: How a California community helped prevent the Bridge fire from destroying their town
Firefighters work to save a home from a wildfire
San Bernardino County firefighters work to save a home in Wrightwood as they battle the Bridge fire on Sept. 11.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
By Chad Hanson
Sept. 23, 2024 4:54 PM PT

On the evening of Sept. 10, things looked bad for the mountain ski town of Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains, northeast of Los Angeles. Driven by extreme fire weather, the Bridge fire, which had started on the other side of the mountain range, grew from just a few thousand acres to 34,240 acres that day, and was spreading toward the town. By the next morning, it had reached Wrightwood’s boundaries.

This could have been a catastrophe, like the Camp fire in 2018, which claimed dozens of lives and destroyed thousands of homes in the northern Sierra Nevada town of Paradise. Instead, out of more than 2,000 residences in Wrightwood, 13 were destroyed by the Bridge fire. It’s tragic that homes were lost, yet the fact that more than 99% of residences survived and all of the people were safely evacuated is a significant wildfire success story. What explains it?

In recent years, Wrightwood got very serious about community fire-safety measures. Long before the Bridge fire began, the local Fire Safe Council held educational events, coordinating with multiple agencies and governments. They promoted the importance of simple “home hardening” measures to make homes more fireproof, such as sweeping pine needles and leaves off of roofs and installing modern exterior vents that prevent flaming embers from entering houses. They preached about the effectiveness of “defensible space,” advocating that residents prune grasses, saplings and lower limbs immediately adjacent to their homes. And they created an evacuation plan.

The Bridge fire is still burning, but slowly being brought under control. It’s currently 71% contained, with some zones still under evacuation and evacuation warning. As it threatened Wrightwood, wildland firefighting teams prioritized the kind of direct community protection the town had been preparing its residents for, rather than focusing on remote wildland areas, and trying to stop a wind-driven fire that could not realistically be stopped.

They found that most homes in the town had defensible space, thanks to pruning done by owners. Firefighters concentrated aerial drops of fire retardant and water adjacent to the community, to keep the fire from entering the town. And they helped people evacuate, following the plan the townspeople had made.

Wrightwood’s success in keeping most of its homes safe demonstrates that focusing directly on at-risk communities, rather than on forest management activities out in the wildlands, is a significant way to protect towns from wildfires. We have seen the grim results of logging vast areas of remote forest under the guise of “thinning” and telling communities that these zones would act as fuel breaks, preventing wildfires from reaching towns. Paradise, Greenville (destroyed in the Dixie fire in 2021) and Grizzly Flats, which is still rebuilding after two-thirds of it was lost to the Caldor fire that same year, are all examples of the fallacy of this approach.

Yet there are those who would ignore examples like Wrightwood and want to double down on the failed strategies of the past. The most dangerous current example is the deceptively named Fix Our Forests Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.). If passed it would roll back bedrock environmental laws and allow for clear-cutting — taking out most or all trees in an area — and logging of mature and old-growth trees on federal public lands. The bill is wrong on the science.

While certain forest management practices, such as controlled burns and prescribed natural fires, are important wildfire management tools, there is growing consensus among ecologists and climate scientists that “thinning” and other logging activities do not curb wildfires and more often tend to intensify their behavior and effects. Some of the Forest Service’s own scientists are now criticizing their agency for the failures of the old approach, noting its ineffectiveness and urging a direct focus on community protection. Other Forest Service scientists are reporting that denser forests tend to burn less intensely in wildfires because of their shadier and cooler microclimate, while “thinned forests have more open conditions, which are associated with higher temperatures, lower relative humidity, higher wind speeds, and increasing fire intensity.”

We cannot afford to go backward and stubbornly repeat costly mistakes, as the Fix Our Forests Act would do. Vulnerable communities need officials to take heed of examples like Wrightwood and begin prioritizing community wildfire safety over logging industry profits.

Chad Hanson is a wildfire scientist with the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute and the author of “Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate.”

[Wrightwood]

Start Date: September 8, 2024, at 2:12 p.m.

Fire Size: 54,878 acres
Percent Contained: 81 %
Personnel: 994
Injuries: 8
Structures Damaged: 17
Structures Destroyed: 81

[Wrightwood]

Angeles National Forest

#BridgeFire
Fire Size: 54,878 acres
Percent Contained: 93 %
Personnel: 587

This week’s hot, dry weather caused vegetation within the fire perimeter to flare up, leading to visible smoke in some areas of the fire yesterday. It will likely do so again today as pockets of unburned fuel burn off. Firefighters will engage in mop-up efforts and investigate all smoke and extinguish isolated heat sources.

https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident-information/caanf-bridge-fire

[Wrightwood]

Angeles National Forest
#BridgeFire
Fire Size: 54,878 acres
Percent Contained: 97%
Personnel: 377

THIS WILL BE THE FINAL DAILY UPDATE FOR THE BRIDGE FIRE. For more information, please visit the Angeles National Forest InciWeb: https://inciweb.wildfire.gov/incident.../caanf-bridge-fire

Hot, dry weather continues today and will likely cause some unburned pockets of fuel to flare up. When this happens, smoke may be visible in the fire interior. Firefighters will continue mopping up, investigating smoke, and extinguishing isolated heat sources. Hazardous trees will also be removed to improve public and crew safety.

[tcaarabians]

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-09-29/california-wildfire-fight-hampered-by-forest-service-staffing

[Joe Schmoe]

"Staffing" is the excuse used by all field personnel-based trades.  Then if you ask the personnel, they'll tell you it's mismanagement.  If you deploy your personnel where it counts, you improve your success.  They don't do this.  Are they all hands on deck?  Clearly not.  They are playing the budget game.  Fire the leadership.

[Wrightwood]

San Bernardino National Forest
@SanBernardinoNF
#LineFire Morning Update: September, 30, 2024
43, 251 acres with 80% contained and 1, 176 personnel assigned to the fire. 

[Wrightwood]

LIVE Socalmountains.com Goldmine Cam (Big Bear)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbQQGoM7a5I

[Wrightwood]

Angeles National Forest
1 hr ago
#BridgeFire - Containment rises to 98%.

The increase in winds is kicking up dust & debris from within the fire perimeter.

Isolated trees burning within the fire are putting up smoke, visible in the Pine Mountain area as well as Inspiration point.
 
Due a wind shift, residents and visitors in Wrightwood and the Western Mojave will see and may smell smoke from the Line Fire on the U.S. Forest Service - San Bernardino National Forest. No threat to the San Gabriel mountains.

More information, visit the forest InciWeb: https://bit.ly/3BsAuPu

[Wrightwood]

Current as of    Wed, 10/02/2024
Incident Type    Wildfire
Cause    Under Investigation
Date of Origin    Sun, 09/08/2024 - 18:12
Location    East Fork of San Gabriel Canyon, 6 miles NE of Glendora, CA; Sheep Mountain Wilderness, San Gabriel Mountains National Monument
Incident Commander    Kurt Yearout, Angeles National Forest

Current Situation Total Personnel:    158
Size    54,878 Acres
Percent of Perimeter Contained    98%
Fuels Involved    Chaparral, brush, short grass, dead and down trees

[tcaarabians]

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-10-04/california-fire-chiefs-blast-federal-rules-on-helicopter-use

[sagespirit]

Thanks for the link to the Goldmine cam, John. It is all so overwhelmingly sad.

[Wrightwood]

Angeles National Forest
@Angeles_NF
10/4/24
Angeles National Forest
#BridgeFire

Today we received three calls reporting smoke from the Bridge Fire:

Mt. Baldy Rd. near Ice House Cyn Rd.
Wrightwood - Near Blue Ridge / Inspiration Point
Wrightwood - South of Acorn Dr x Eagle Rd.

All reported smoke is from within the fire perimeter and poses no threat to the community.