Thomas Fire 25% contained — but winds picking up
Firefighters battling a stubborn wildfire burning a path of destruction through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties had a quarter of the blaze contained Wednesday, but strengthening winds threaten to impede progress.
The Thomas Fire has scorched 237,500 acres — roughly 370 square miles — since starting Dec. 4. The inferno, one of multiple blazes that broke out this month in Southern California, has destroyed more than 900 structures and damaged nearly 200 more as blustery Santa Ana winds and dry conditions have fueled its rise to become the fifth-largest fire in modern state history.
The fire is of mammoth proportions, and more than 8,000 firefighters are fighting it on the ground and in the air, 1,200 of whom are from out of state.
“To put that in perspective, in October we had 11,000 firefighters assigned to incidents throughout the state,” said Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire. “Now we’re looking at 8,000 just to this one incident.”
The causes of all the fires are under investigation. But one of the blazes, the Skirball Fire, which tore through 422 acres in the posh Bel-Air Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, destroyed several homes and threatened the Getty Center museum, may have been caused by a cooking fire in a nearby homeless encampment, officials told the Los Angeles Times.
This “makes a tragic event even more tragic,” Los Angeles Councilman Paul Koretz said of the Skirball Fire, which was 90 percent contained Wednesday. “The saddest thing is that we have so many homeless people. And they are everywhere in the city. And that sometimes causes serious problems.”
There has been one confirmed death related to the fires. A woman was found dead in a car in Ventura County, following a crash that probably happened during early evacuations caused by the Thomas Fire.
Jason Hodge, a firefighter in Ventura County, said fire crews battling the Thomas Fire have made significant progress this week.
“We have a lot of the southeastern part of the fire under control,” Hodge said. “We have containment in those areas, from Fillmore to Ventura.”
But Hodge said flames were spreading in the Los Padres Wilderness and areas near Santa Barbara, on the northern flank of the Thomas Fire.
Hodge said Wednesday morning that firefighters hadn’t seen much growth in the past 48 hours, in part because the fire is now moving into areas that have burned in the past five or 10 years, where there hasn’t been much regrowth of vegetation. He also said winds have been favorable for fighting the fire, in contrast to last week.
“We saw a lot less wind and a little rise in humidity near the coastal area of this fire,” Hodge said. “So we saw very little actual growth of the fire overnight.”
Still, winds are likely to pick up again. Meteorologist Roger Gass of the National Weather Service said winds were forecast to be 10 to 25 mph Wednesday, with gusts up to 40 mph. They’re expected to increase again slightly Thursday morning.
“It’s very, very dry in that area,” Gass said.
McLean said the weather is expected to turn favorable again this weekend, as humidity is forecast to increase.
Meanwhile, the two other major fires that raged in the region over the past two weeks — the Creek Fire in Los Angeles County and the Lilac Fire in San Diego County — are nearly 100 percent contained. The Rye Fire in Los Angeles County reached 100 percent containment Tuesday evening.
The cause of the Rye, Lilac and Creek fires will probably take months to determine, but investigators are looking closely at whether equipment owned by Southern California Edison, the electric utility company that serves much of Ventura County, played a role in igniting the Thomas Fire.
“The investigations now include locations beyond those identified last week as the apparent origin of these fires,” the power company said in a statement Monday. “SCE believes the investigations now include the possible role of its facilities.”
“We wind rise in saw and humidity a a lot little less ... so we saw very little actual growth of the fire overnight.” Jason Hodge, firefighter