Wild-firefighting on: Mission Save Homes

August 31st, 2009 - 7:08 pm ICT by IBNS  

By Samrat Banerjee

Aug 31 (IBNS) Firefighters have geared up in the small community of Acton for an all-out battle to keep the wildfire, which has already burnt 35,000 acres, at bay to save more residential units.

US Forest Service Incident Chief Mike Dietrich Sunday dubbed the Station fire “treacherous,” saying the current fire plan was “to go defensive, to let the fire come to us, because it has been going so fast.”

Fixed-wing aircraft and a DC-10 were dropping water and flame retardant on the fire Sunday.

Officials did report some progress. In La Cañada Flintridge, some residents living west of the Arroyo Seco were told they could go back to their homes, sources said.

An evacuation order in portions of Glendale also was lifted. But about 6,000 homes across the 19-mile fire line remained under an evacuation order.

In Acton, the situation was tense. Wind picked up around 1330 hours and began to drive the fire down canyons, threatening the community.

Battalion Chief Scott Johnson, of the Santa Maria Fire Department said: This fire is converting from slope-driven to wind-driven. It’ll get larger because of the wind. That’s when it gets dangerous.

Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger also urged residents in fire evacuation zones to flee as firefighters predicted another difficult day.

Related Stories

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Environment |

Subscribe