Posted on 08/27/2009 11:06:57 PM PDT by OldDeckHand
LOS ANGELES — Wildfires erupted up and down California Thursday as a late summer siege of heat and low humidity levels made conditions ripe for conflagrations.
Structures could be seen burning in the wealthy communities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula south of Los Angeles, while suburbs on the foothills to the north of the city were threatened by a slumbering fire that suddenly roared to life in the evening hours.
Dozens of homes were evacuated in Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles County fire Inspector Steve Zermeno said. TV news footage showed structures on fire and at least one entirely engulfed in flames. Fire officials could not confirm if any structures or homes had been damaged or destroyed.
In the northern Los Angeles foothill suburb of La Canada Flintridge, residents of about 500 homes were told to evacuate Thursday night, where a fast-moving wildfire has crested a ridge and is burning downhill towards neighborhoods.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Doesn't Trump have his Golf Course in Palos Verdes?
Yes, but I don’t think it will affect the course...it is VERY green and there’s sprinklers all over the place. I hike around it at times.
Yes, south of the “Portuguese bend” but the fire is not as close to this as in other areas.
We used to live in Rancho Palos Verdes, about thirty years ago. Beautiful area, very expensive homes, many on hilltops with fantastic views of the coast.
Channel 7 in L.A. is saying it’s near Crest Road in Rolling Hills. Lots of people in that area have horses stabled on their properties. It’s a private, gated community.
There’s a large wall of fire moving up the hillside right now.
About 120 homes nearby, multi-million dollar properties, a nature preserve nearby (didn’t get the name).
Fire captain speaking now: “extremely dense and dry brush...
nine streets have been evacuated...trying to keep the fire south of Crest Road...”
Four choppers are to fly throughout the night dropping water, not so much to put out the fire but to cut down on some of its heat. The fire looks better than it did a half-hour ago, it’s no longer running up the canyon. It doesn’t look out of control like it did earlier.
Fire appears to be burning steadily but away from the homes up on the hill.
I have two live feeds from MyFoxLA:
http://media.myfoxla.com/live/
http://media.myfoxla.com/live/2/
First one seems to be a stationary truck; second is a chopper buzzing over the various locations.
I’m worried about tomorrow. Temperatures in the area could be in the high 90’s with extremely low humidity.
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=90274&wuSelect=WEATHER
The good thing about this fire is it doesn’t appear to be very large. Hopefully they can knock it down tonight.
.
Jerry River’s little friends dropping cigarettes again?
I grew up in RPV and my mom still lives there. There are a number of Palos Verdes Freepers here. I have been glued to the TV all night and have never seen such a large fire in the area. It hasn’t burned like this in over 35 years. It looks like the Fire Dept. has done an outstanding job of getting it under control. It is a beautiful place to live and visit.
Mrs. PoS
I’m really sorry about the fire trouble, but the good news is that it gives us a break from Kennedy adulation 24/7 from the news whores!
It is a really nice location there on the peninsula. I have family - 2 different branches, in fact - living in RPV & PV Estates, both safely across Hawthorne from Crest/Portuguese Bend where last night's fire seems to have been, thankfully.
Luckily the winds were nonexistent last night so the FD could send up the choppers to drop water. An update at the OP article this morning says:
"We've been able to knock the intensity of the head of the fire, slowing its rate of spread, and giving most of the concentration to the flanks throughout the night," Stowers said.
Stowers said there were an unknown number of structures damaged by flames before firefighters reached the scene Thursday night, but he stressed early today that "no structures have been destroyed."
Whew! How's that for service? My prayers were answered before I finished reading the update. ;-)
Just caught a report on that Feed #2 above that said the Station Fire up by La Crescenta is growing and not contained. Back in the 60’s I went there with a friend in the Navy who had relatives in that area of the foothills - really beautiful area. As I recall, they didn’t use grass for the lawns, but something that looked like clover. Hope they get it under control and everyone stays safe.
The fire captain was on TV a little while ago saying that the use of the choppers dropping water all through the night was critical to the containment of this fire. I think he said there were five helicopters in all, with powerful night vision lights. Most cities don’t have these kind of helicopters that can fly all night.
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