Evacuations in Glendale, Altadena and Big Tujunga Canyon; two people treated for burns

The Station fire was spreading rapidly to the east and west this afternoon, prompting evacuations in La Cañada Flintridge, Glendale, Altadena and Big Tujunga Canyon as temperatures reached triple digits.

Los Angeles County Fire Department dispatcher Melanie Flores told The Times that two people were being treated for burns at the Big Tujunga ranger station, though more details were not immediately available.

The Station fire has now burned more than 20,000 acres, according to fire officials.

The latest evacuation zone is in the remote upper reaches of Big Tujunga Canyon near the ranger station, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The city of Glendale also ordered evacuations north of Santa Carlotta Street between Pennsylvania and Lowell avenues. The city of Pasadena advised residents of the Florecita neighborhood in the far northwest of the city to evacuate their homes voluntarily.

Temperatures topping 100 degrees, single-digit humidity and the steep, rugged topography of the Angeles National Forest continue to make the fire a formidable foe despite low winds, fire officials said today.

"All of a sudden, it flared up," said Bruce Quintelier, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service. Earlier this morning the flames were creeping through canyons and hillsides. The flames are beginning to approach homes in both La Cañada Flintridge near Highway 2 and the Meadows neighborhood between two canyons on the northwestern tip of Altadena.

Massive and ominous-looking smoke plumes continue to envelop the area and have made for poor air quality, falling ash and smoky odors in the nearest communities, the San Fernando Valley and other parts of Los Angeles. Outside the fire command post today at the Hansen Dam Recreation Center in Lake View Terrace, the air is so choked with smoke that it resembles a London fog of decades ago.

Literally adding fuel to the fire is 20- to 30-foot-high brush that has not burned in 60 years, said Mike Dietrich, incident commander from the Forest Service.

"If there’s a silver lining, there are no Santa Ana winds expected at this time,” Dietrich said.

The latest mandatory evacuation zones include scores of homes in Altadena, including the Meadows neighborhood between El Prieto Canyon and Millard Canyon. Among the streets included are Canyon Crest, Rising Hill and Aralia roads.

In La Cañada Flintridge, evacuated areas include neighborhoods on the northern edge of the city closest to the Angeles Crest Highway, generally from La Cañada Boulevard to the La Cañada Flintridge Golf Course.

More than 2,000 homes and 52 other structures are threatened in the La Cañada Flintridge area. Fire has burned right up to homes, but no structures have been destroyed. About 750 firefighters are deployed. One suffered minor heat-related injuries and was hospitalized overnight. He is expected to be released today.

Today, the priority for firefighters is the so-called front country, the area closest to homes. Firefighters are attacking it with air tankers and shovels. Super Scooper planes are not expected until Thursday -- welcome but not essential, fire officials said.

“Super Scoopers are just another tool in the toolbox. If they’re available, we’ll take advantage of it,”  said Dietrich.

Firefighters are also keeping an eye on Mt. Wilson, which is six to eight miles east of the fire. “That’s several days out. It gives us an opportunity to prepare and defend the Mt. Wilson site,” said L.A. County Fire Department Deputy Chief Jim Powers, an incident commander.

As evacuations widen, residents along foothill communities are on edge.

One leg of the fire was moving southeast toward Altadena. Another leg was moving north, and officials said they are trying to prevent it from getting to the communications centers at Mt. Wilson. A western leg was moving toward Big Tujunga Canyon.

Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders for scores of homes in the area of the La Cañada Flintridge Golf Course. The orders include Starlight Crest Drive, Greenridge Drive, Forest Green Drive and Ridge Court, said Sgt. Daniel Stanley of the county Sheriff’s Department. The communities are east of the Angeles Crest Highway.

Residents were asked to assemble their families and leave the area. An evacuation center has been set up at La Cañada High School, at 4463 Oak Grove Drive, where the Red Cross will assist evacuees.

Donna Robinson, 60, has been preparing to be evacuated since Wednesday, packing up documents, clothes and baby dish mementos of her adult children. She also packed up two dogs and three cats.

“I’m not even afraid now. I think it's good we're just out of the house. Now I feel it's not under my control,” said Robinson as she sat with her husband, Paul, 57, outside the gym of La Cañada High.

This morning, residents began to slowly stream into the high school.

The worry was evident on Sonia Castellon's face as she made her way into the makeshift evacuation center.

"I was trying to keep calm, keep it together. But the moment you leave your home it's hard," the 46-year-old dentist said as she began to tear up.

Castellon said she had packed a large amount of valuables throughout the day just in case, because the fire was getting worse near her Greenridge Drive home. She packed away pictures, jewelry, cash, and discs and cards with family memories -- things that cannot be replaced.

"We had two hours from when they called, and it was already after 11 [p.m.] when we got the call. I'm scared of not having a house when we go back."

Having to evacuate was especially tough for Castellon's daughter, Carla Torres. They were in the midst of preparing for her sweet 16 birthday party. Although she hopes the party at the Castaway Restaurant and Banquet Center in Burbank offers a temporary relief, Carla said she hadn't envisioned herself waking up on her birthday at her high school.

"It's really scary right now," Carla said.

In all, nearly 10,000 acres had burned in the four major Southern California fires by Friday evening. In addition to those wildfires, two separate blazes scorched about 1,000 acres in sprawling Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. Neither fire threatened structures.

An air assault through the night helped bring the Palos Verdes Peninsula fire under 90% containment. Expensive homes in Rolling Hills and Rancho Palos Verdes had been threatened, with flames lapping at the eaves of some residences.

The blaze consumed 230 acres.

In steep terrain above Hemet, a San Bernardino National Forest wildfire was just 10% contained but was not posing an immediate threat to structures, although 2,200 acres had burned. A mandatory evacuation order in the Willowbrook Road area was lifted, but voluntary evacuation advisories remained for Bee Canyon.

The Morris fire, which started five miles north of Azusa near San Gabriel Canyon Road, blackened more than 2,000 acres and was 85% contained, officials said. The fire was burning in mostly open mountain country, but voluntary evacuations were in effect for the North Fork of the San Gabriel River.

The Los Angeles County Public Health Department warned people to avoid outdoor activities. Air quality deteriorated throughout the day as temperatures climbed, becoming unhealthful in western San Bernardino and Riverside counties as well as in parts of the San Fernando Valley.

-- Ann Simmons and Gerrick D. Kennedy in La Cañada Flintridge, with Carla Hall and Rong-Gong Lin II in Los Angeles

Photo credit: Michal Czerwonka / EPA

Comments

[Greg]

I am in Sunland. Looking out my back door towards the western end of Big Tujunga Canyon, I see flames on the ridge. This is not in upper Big Tujunga Canyon; it is down in Tujunga not far from where Mt. Gleason meets Big Tujunga Canyon Road. Probably close to the Little League fields on Big Tujunga Canyon Road.

[Tim Adams]

If homes are lost in this fire, I respectfully request that you delete 'You got what you deserved!' posts submitted by angry readers.

A family that just lost a home to fire does not need to be told the day it happened that they had no business building so close to woodlands. One does not tell a sobbing child at a funeral that Daddy deserved to die because he smoked.

I don't think that most readers who post such remarks imagine how their words must be received by someone who just lost everything.

I can't see any harm in informing your readers that you have deleted such posts. In a sense, you are sparing some posters the responsibility for their own unintended cruelty.

[jparker]

Good thing the LA Times is covering this fire. As of 4:30 pm, not one television station in LA gives a damn.

[Roger Griffith]

check out the time lapse footage from the La Canada Fire

[Nikolette L]

The smoke and combustion from the fires have reached Antelope Valley. We live in Palmdale and the air is so strong, you would think that the fires are here as well. There are ashes falling in the back yard and the color of outside is orange. It would be great to get an air quality report on this area and know what to do about it.

Thanks!

[Frank Martinez]

I believe that the way in which the station fire has been handled is an outrage. Their continual excuses of high temperatures and steep terrain are ridiculous. They should have called in much larger forces much sooner. The fact that superscoopers will not be here until Thursday is ridiculous. There is something seriously wrong in the way this fire is being handled!!!

[john smith]

Prayers and much more we offer to you. May your homes be spared. God Bless and hold you in His Arms.

[Kristin Nelson]

Where is the map of the actual burn area? Why is the Forest Service not providing this information?

[Michelle Medina]

I am curious, as I live in La Crescenta, why all the local television stations aren't televising the fires. I live below the Station fire and don''t when we have to evacuate. Our neighbors and I are standing outside looking at flames coming down our mountain. Why are the local channels broadcasting insipid television shows while we have to wonder how to get information and go on line for maps?

[Russ in North Carolina]

I lived in Southern California for thirty years. The fire season is as predictable as the grunion runs off Huntington Beach. Hope the homes don't burn and nobody is killed this year.

[Greg]

Somebody forgot to tell the Castellon/Torres clan they're lost. East LA is several miles to the southeast. Good luck beating the traffic on your way back home. God speed.

[S Williams]

Why isn't the Obama administration doing anything to fix this!?!?

[SAR]

All LA newsmedia is missing the North flanck of the Station fire. There are dozens of homes in emminent danger of burning in the next few hours.

In Acton, in Bootlegger Canyon and other I suspect.

Visible now from Soledad Cyn and Bootlegger Cyn (near Crown Valley and Soledad Cyn)

There is little to no structure protection at this time. I hold LA County Fire in high regard.

My fear for the residents there is that resources is that limited fire resources will be thin here this time around.

In any case, there'll be some killer video to be had.

I live several miles from there and was just there helping a friend evac.

The fires is barrelling down on Thousand Trails Campgrounds with untold numbers of guests but a substance rehabilitation facility with untold numbers of guests as well...

There are far more ranches with horses out here so there's always a convoy of trucks with horse trailiers inbound to help.

Quite often these volunteers are strangers to the owner of the horses that are being transported to safety. inbound to help out.

I know that this flank of the Station fire is no more or less important than any other flank, of any other fire....

It appears that this impending devastation, is going un-noticed.....

[SAR]

The Station Fire in Acton will also affect Metrolink commuter trains and BNSF freight trains to the Antelope Valley.

By sunup Sunday morning I believe things will be bad there.

The entire ridge, several miles long, above Bootlegger Canyon in on fire and it's creaping slowly North..... right at the homes there.

[Bob]

Having grown up in Altadena at a time when state and county fire crews were allowed to clear out old growth debris and create 'fire break' roads, I view with disgust the peril that anyone living within 10 miles of the foothills face today.

I hope no one loses property or life. For the loss of invaluable watershed, you can thank the Sierra Club and the dysfunctional state and federal legislatures for putting a virgin forest above pruning the forest.

[Marc Jeric]

Here we can observe again the deadly work of our eco-nazis who say "Do not touch the nature". Every year huge fires gobble up millions of acres - but they say "No tree cutting, no brush removal". When shall we learn? When shall one judge slap the costs of those frivolous "environmetal" lawsuits on the instigators? When shall all the judges start doing so?

[bruce warren]

It's a tragic commentary that to out-of-staters, like me, the perennial fires of California have become a ho-hum happenstance, a lot like monsoons in the Arabian Sea. Are they being set by illegal aliens, campers, lightning. Isn't it about time that real estate developers, State of California officials and Federal gov't got a handle on your fires?

[Russ]

This fire is out of control and headed in every direction! I can see the flames reaching hundreds of feet into the air. Tomorrow (Sunday) the whole nation will be watching this fire as it burns up both the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys. This is serious.

[Mac]

A little advice... Don't live in areas that are known for wild fires

[Joan S.]

So very sad. If I were a California resident, I'd repeal every "green" law that hurts the state and , instead, put every single dollar into fire fighting and fire prevention. These fires throw more pollution into the atmosphere than automobiles ever created!

[carlb]

please when is california going to allow the removal of scrub brush. for decades people have been saying this will reduce these out of control raging fires on a yearly basis. putting firefighters and residents in danger. california you are the poster child for much needed reevaluation of these dtupid rules! how many more of these things must america see on yearly schedule. i live in florida which has these spurts also but we allow scrub brush removal so our fires are more containable. also my brother inlaw is a smoker and i hear this every year from him.

[Asian view]

This is another hair brained liberal agenda from the environmentalists that has gone wrong for quite a while. Ever since they have forced the Forestry department not to do controlled fires of underbrush, all in the name of saving endangered species or maintaining the the forests in some ill conceived notion of a "pristine state", California has been experiencing these uncontrolled Armageddon style forest fires, resulting in exactly the opposite effect of what the environmentalist wanted to prevent.

These fires have not only destroyed homes but also the very ecosystems and the endangered species that the environmentalists wanted saved from these controlled fires. As long as these short sighted laws are kept on the books, these massive forest fires will be an annual and tragic event in California costing unnecessary expenditure of taxpayers money.

[jimmy]

Every year you read of major fires in California and its the same stupid sad story. thick under growth, hasn't burned in 60 yrs. here in Nevada, you drive the east side of Lake Tahoe and you will notice the trees have been thinned out with no underbrush. Subsequently, you never hear of fires on the Nevada side of the Lake. Now drive the California side, what do you see? thick underbrush, trees are chocked out with dead fuel all over the ground. No wonder there are big fires each year in California. As long as the environmentalist nut jobs control everything, this will never change. Just look at the trees along I-80 between Donner Lake all the way to Auburn and the tree trunks are so thick they are litereally 8 inches apart in some places. Nature took care of this hundreds of years before man arrived and the forests were healthy and kept in check through periodic forest fires that kept the forest floor clean and the even burned through so fast that the large trees would often survive and continue growing. but with Californians snuffing the fires out when they occur just increases dead fuel on the forest floor that becomes explosive and burns much hotter and destroys everything when a major fire does come. Simple common sense, too bad Californian environmentalists don't have any.

[Tom]

Literally adding fuel to the fire is 20- to 30-foot-high brush that has not burned in 60 years, said Mike Dietrich, incident commander from the Forest Service. My question is:Why hasn't this brush been cut back to prevent these fires, maybe it's because of the Environmental Wakos???

[jggrimm]

I hope that as a nation we can adopt policies that allow for the mass of forest underbrush to be cleared by hand. Property owners should be given the freedom to protect their surrounding, their habitat. City and County governments can enlist the labor of inmates from county jails and state prison to work at a low cost to the taxpayer as they earn a small but reasonable compensation for their labor, including good time credits. The perennially unemployed can be put to task at a minimum wage to do tough but meaningful work. This labor could be done during the cooler months. There are preventative options available which could serve to abate the human suffering these fires cause.

[Mike M]

Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and SAFER to initiate controlled fires in various strategic areas during cooler/damper periods in order to prevent these massive fires in run-away conditions? Just sayin...

[FedUp]

Remember all you clean-living "green" holier-than-thou left coast wackoes. This WILL be counted into your total carbon footprint for the year!!!!!!!

[ByteRider]

Michael Jackson. Dr. Tiller, the baby killer, Sen. Ted Kennedy, California burning.

And they say there's no God. Ha!

[Milt]

Maybe I'm wrong, I have lived in Las Vegas for many years but I don't remember the numbers of fires Southern California has experienced like they have in the last several years. I do not believe for a minute that these fires are all naturally set. If arson is the cause, I would hope that The State of California goes after the people who starts these fires with a vengeance like no other. Accidents do happen. It just seems like there are to many of them.

[phil]

I wonder; so many fires. Do we have any video possible of people coming and going out of state forestry? Osama B. , in one of his project papers several years ago, called for the purposeful burning down of western states, especially California, just for the massive expense and manpower drain.
I would not be in disbelief for one minute, if we were to find out, that radical muslims are starting some of these fires.

[TBReads]

The photo of the neglected, abandoned arabian horse says all I want to know about the residents of this area. Does anybody know what happened to the horse? My thoughts to all the residents who have lost their homes and happy birthday to Carla. She'll have a story to tell about ehr 16th birthday someday.

[Robert]

................................................

I hope no one loses property or life. For the loss of invaluable watershed, you can thank the Sierra Club and the dysfunctional state and federal legislatures for putting a virgin forest above pruning the forest.

Posted by: Bob | August 30, 2009 at 12:34 AM

Agreed but the environmentalists don't give a damn about human life. They consider themselves to be a superior life form. I can't stand the two faced weasels.

[Abigail]

Growing up in La Canada, Ontario and Upland 30-50 years ago, I remember fires, not yearly, though. Most were begun from cigarettes tossed from vehicles back then. Population was much less dense. There were manned firewatch towers here and there, also, through the park service, if I recall correctly. My step-father would hose down our roof top during each major fire, since ashes can become airborne for miles, while my mother would make sandwiches, filling 1-3 of those large brown paper grocery bags with sandwiches, apples, and cans of soda for delivery to firefighters. I live in NC now, in an area where controlled burns periodically are conducted. I do not remember fires in California lasting very long.

[pedro]

I think Bush probably did it

If you people moved to Houston you would not have these problems every year

[It's Bush's Fault]

It's all Bushs' fault.

[ryan]

Some of the comments here, courtesy of Drudgetards, are atrocious.

May those affected by the fire be well.

[Jason]

This is a conspiracy. The California government set this fire to get funds from the Federal Government because the state is bankrupt. Corrupt politicians.

[Duson]

You would be surprise at how many of the firefighters now rushing uphill with extremely heavy back packs who are compressing and injuring their spines...and will in short order be in extreme pain from the effort...lastingly....be denied benefit for this immediate sacrifice of body and life...

The Forest Service seems to care little, going goes to great length ignoring later cries for help from these valiant servants...who are finding this noble sacrifice painful and debilitating...and permanent....

[Trixie]

I find it regrettable that so many haters are turning what is happening in the state that I love so much into banter about environmentalists being selfish and above the fray. My prayers go out to everyone whose lives are being turned inside out. Please be safe and know that those who love California, love you as well. Also, a big shout out for the stables, vets and others who are taking on the responsibilities of caring for evacuee animals.

[Ted Buchanan]

We're at Apperson and Pinewood in Tujunga.
It's chaos on the roads-Please tell the looky loos to slow down! LAPD going door to door on Pinyon- Evacuating residents. A big thank you to Glendale PD/ LAPD for all their help. Fire is cresting right now just above homes on border of La Crescenta/Tujunga. We may have to leave...
standing by for LAPD instructions...

[tujunga1]

I am from the Sunland-Tujunga area and remember well all of the fires over the years. My heart goes out to those affected, and I hope they get all of the fires under control soon.

It is nearly time for the Santa Anas, and if they aren't under control before they start to blow, it will be even more catastrophic than it already is.

Again, my thoughts are with all in the area!

[Gary Johnson]

I was one of the last to leave Vogel Flats about an hour before the place went up. We received no water drops. I saw but one fire truck. Fire command chose not to fight for Big Tujunga Canyon. Guess where all the damaged occurred. I love fire fighters but fire fighting management in this case sucked and those responsible should be investigated and removed from post.