20 cars destroyed in fire on 15 Freeway; fast-moving blaze threatens homes

LA Times

A fast-moving brush fire swept over the 15 Freeway in San Bernardino County on Friday, destroying 20 vehicles, damaging 10 others and threatening several mountain communities. Five homes have been damaged.

In a region where brush fires are a way of life, the scene on the main route to Las Vegas was surreal. For more than an hour, cars, trucks and even a boat burned as news helicopters recorded the destruction.  

Helicopters made dramatic water drops on burning vehicles.

Dozens of vehicles were abandoned on the freeway as drivers fled from the flames.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said California Highway Patrol Officer Steve Carapia.

Carapia said that 60 to 70 cars were abandoned on the road, making it difficult for emergency responders to maneuver through all the cars left behind. They were able to turn some cars around that were outside the immediate hot zone through an access road between the north- and southbound sides of the highway, he said.

CHP officers were escorting people to their cars – if drivable – so they could leave the area. The southbound side remains closed to all traffic other than those people, Carapia said.

The CHP has taken water to stranded motorists, he added.

There were no reports of injuries.

A hotshot crew, an elite group of firefighters, from the Eldorado division of the U.S. Forest Service is being deployed, according to a tweet from the group.

U.S. Forest Service spokesman David Cruz said in an interview at 6:30 p.m. that five homes have been damaged and 50 are threatened. He said no injuries had been reported.

He said that the wind is blowing 15 to 20 mph, which is helping the fire spread.

He said that conditions could improve after the sun sets.

“That’s what we’re hoping for, for the wind to calm down,” and the nighttime air to cool the flames, he said.

An evacuation center has been set up at Serrano High School at 9292 Sheep Creek Road in Phelan.

Amid the evacuations, fights have broken out and people have been stealing from Baldy’s Market, said Melissa Atalla, the store manager at the gas station near the interstate.

“It’s pure chaos,” she said. “All the pumps are full; people are just running out of the store with things.”

Sirens could be heard in the background as she spoke on the phone.

The fire had burned more than 3,500 acres and was spreading rapidly through the chaparral and grass, said Melody Lardner, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. It was being fueled by dry conditions and heavy winds. She said that two southbound lanes of the freeway and one northbound lane were closed.

Traffic — typically bad on Fridays as people head to Las Vegas — was jammed for miles. Officials urged drivers to stay away.

It’s not unusual for a fast-moving fire to jump over roads. In the massive Old Fire in 2003 in the San Bernardino National Forest, flames jumped California 18. Video captured a KNBC news van catching fire as a reporter fled.

But the situation on Friday was unique because the 15 Freeway is a major roadway and was packed with weekend travelers.

The cause of the fire is unknown, Lardner said.

The fire left residents on edge.

While studying at her Victorville home Friday afternoon, Stephanie Lowe, 24, got a text message from her grandmother. She was worried about Lowe’s boyfriend, who takes Interstate 15 to get to his job at a warehouse in Ontario.

“I hope Hector made it to work,” it read. “The 15 Freeway, cars are on fire. Look at the news, it looks terrible.”

She ran to the front door and didn’t see anything and then checked out back. She’s used to wildfires – they’re common near her home, she said – but this looked surreal. She watched heavy, black smoke float across the sky. The sun looked bright red.

“It looks like a scene from an end-of-the-world movie,” she said.

She turned on the TV and got an even-scarier view. She saw cars on fire. She texted her boyfriend, who told her he hadn’t gone to work Friday.

“It’s trippy,” she said, “If he’d been going to work at that moment. Wow.”

By 5:30 p.m., Lowe said the sky was getting even darker.

Officials have been warning of a bad fire season after four years of drought.

The situation is made worse by dying trees in forest areas.

This year, researchers with the U.S. Forest Service surveyed 4.2 million acres of trees in the Cleveland, San Bernardino, Angeles and Los Padres national forests and found that 2 million trees had died because of the drought and the invasion of bark beetles. The tiny bark beetle thrives in dry conditions, chewing away at pines and making them brittle.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-fire-in-cajon-pass-20150717-story.html