Beverly Tekala
A tree fell on this car in Woodlands Hills on Thursday.
ABC News
Posted on 04/12/2007 3:05:36 PM PDT by La Enchiladita
LOS ANGELES, Apr. 12, 2007 - Fires erupted in the hills above Los Angeles, damaging or destroying several homes, and in high desert brush Thursday as dangerous north winds swept dry Southern California, knocking out power to thousands and triggering a fatal highway pileup in a blinding sandstorm.
About 150 firefighters and water-dropping helicopters battled a 15-acre blaze in grass in the hilly Beverly Glen area above the city of Beverly Hills, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers.
With windspeeds upward of 50 mph, fires erupted on the roofs of homes and several were damaged or destroyed but there were no specific details, Myers said.
Beverly Glen is a neighborhood of expensive homes on the south face of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Firefighters also battled a structure fire in Beverly Hills but it was not immediately known if it was related to the brush fire, which erupted about 1 p.m. Myers said.
Southern California is extremely fire-prone after a dry winter. Downtown Los Angeles has recorded less than 2½ inches of rain since July 1.
Power outages hit about 29,500 Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers and 2,000 Southern California Edison customers, said spokespersons for the utilities.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
Many thanks to the firefighters who have already got several of these fires under control
Ping.
that house that burned to the ground was pretty big...20 rooms?
Keep us informed, because FOX is 24-7 on the Imus story. You would think nothing else happened today.
We've got airborne palm bark and fronds out in the San Fernando Valley. There is a wind advisory until 10 p.m. They said gusts are expected up to 45 mph but I'm guessing they're quite a bit stronger.
There are about 3 or 4 fires out there that I know about right now...
Bev Hills was only one, although maybe the most noticable one. One up in Owens Valley is probably the largest, but I haven’t heard anything lately about how big it is...
Nasty days for fires to start.
Prayers for the response people...
Blowing a gale down here....must be really bad up near the mountains...
WOW -— Beverly Glen is a fancy area, IIRC.
Blowing many MPGs near Knotts Berry Farm Area.
Fire right now would be REAL BAD.
Yikes! Prayers up.
Pretty steady to strong gusts down here in South OC too.
There is a brush fire in Brea also....and in Palmdale.
Thanks for the link, Karl. That was a devastating fire.
Hopefully no one uses shingles on their roof anymore.
Windy here in the Torrance area too, but down here in the basin we don’t have the same fire danger. However, they do up on Palos Verdes. Be safe all my fellow SoCal FReepers. The danger is great from nature and malicious humans.
They want to replace all the palm trees here in Los Angeles.
Maybe they feel it's less expensive and safer for regular trees to blow over rather than have heavy airborne palm tree bark and fronds.
ABC News
There are plenty of people with wood shingles....LA has never made it mandatory to replace them.
(unlike other cities)
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