As much of LA County burns, Hurst and Lidia fires elevate concerns in SCV
Santa Clarita Valley residents were encouraged to remain on high alert Thursday but given promise in the forecast that the worst might have passed, after firefighters throughout the region dealt with thousands of acres burning in winds as high as 100 mph for much of Wednesday.
There were a pair of incidents threatening the SCV and creating cause for vigilance, Deputy Robert Jensen, spokesman for the SCV Sheriff’s Station, said late Wednesday.
Hurst Fire
The Angeles National Forest posted on its official X account at 11:24 a.m. on Wednesday that the Hurst Fire was at 700 acres after reportedly holding at 505 acres earlier in the day.
The fire was initially reported at 10:28 p.m. Tuesday with L.A. County Fire Department on the scene by 10:42 p.m., according to Howard Tieu, an L.A. County Fire Department dispatcher with the media line.
Tieu said the incident was part of a joint response, which was being led by the L.A. city Fire Department due to where it started.
“This is not a drill,” L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a live broadcast that went out Wednesday morning, as she stood surrounded by leaders of the first responders working on the disaster. “This is real time.”
A mandatory evacuation order remained in place for the area just south of the Newhall Pass as of Wednesday evening, according to the L.A. City Fire Department officials.
Jensen shared the information from the agency, which was still reporting 0% containment and more than 700 acres burned as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.
A promising sign for fire officials, who also bombarded the region with water drops all day from aerial resources, is that the size of the blaze remained largely unchanged for much of Wednesday.
L.A. City Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley said Tuesday in a live address that the number and scale of incidents were stretching the department’s resources thin, sending a message of gratitude to those who are on the front lines.
The city of Los Angeles was leading the response to the fire while managing emergency 911 resources for about 4 million residents, she reminded the public, noting more than 3,000 service calls were handled during that time, which, for perspective, is well over double the average of 1,500 calls for a 24-hour period.
There were no injuries reported from the Hurst Fire as of Wednesday, but two structures had been lost, according to city fire officials who did not have the addresses immediately available as of Wednesday.
Lidia Fire
Jensen added that the Hurst Fire, which still had evacuation warnings in place for parts of Newhall and areas due east as of Wednesday, was only half the concern for first responders battling fires in the SCV area.
The Lidia Fire, which broke out around 1 p.m. near the intersection of East Soledad Canyon Road and Crown Valley Road in Acton, grew from 1 acre to 50 within minutes, prompting officials to call mandatory evacuation orders for Cali Lake RV Resort.
“Residents in the Sand Canyon and far east areas of Santa Clarita should be ready, know their zones and listen to all orders from the Fire and Sheriff’s departments,” Jensen said in a phone interview Wednesday.
“Be aware of road closures that may affect (residents) going and coming,” he said, mentioning the protect.genasys.com website, where first responders have been directing people for updated information on ever-evolving evacuation orders Wednesday.
The owner of Cali Lakes, Stewart Silver, said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon the mandatory nature of the order was lifted minutes later, but residents were encouraged to be ready to leave.
Silver also said many of the residents have few options, which is a reason why the park’s location was a concern for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last year.
Palmdale Sheriff’s Station officials confirmed deputies were on the scene as of about 2:30 p.m. to help Fire Department officials with evacuation orders.
While the RV park was spared, there were “a handful” of homes along Arrastre Canyon Road in the Antelope Valley that were still under mandatory evacuation Wednesday evening.
Metrolink officials confirmed as of 1:45 p.m. that its tracks between Vincent Grade Station in Acton and Vista Canyon Station in Canyon Country were closed for the duration of the response to the fire.
A Metrolink official referred those looking for real-time updates on service to its X account, @metrolinkAV.
As of 5 p.m., firefighters “had the upper hand” on the incident, according to L.A. County Fire Department Capt. Sheila Kelleher, in a phone interview Wednesday evening.
“Firefighters are making great progress with the aircraft,” Kelleher said. The incident was being reported at 40% containment at 248 acres burned, according to scanner traffic around 6 p.m.
Forecast
While the winds reached triple digits for the recording station on the west side of the SCV, Lisa Phillips, meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said she doesn’t anticipate similar highs from Thursday’s weather.
“This was a very unique situation, where we had mountain waves creating extremely strong winds in areas that typically don’t see those types of winds,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday. “So we’re looking at everything kind of transitioning down right now, and then transitioning into a more typical Santa Ana wind event for Thursday night into Friday.”
While the wind storm that came in Monday from the northeast was similar to the Santa Ana winds – which are typically dry, warm and gusty – this storm was much stronger and blew in from offshore, making it much colder, according to Phillips.
City response, outages
The city of Santa Clarita reported there was no major structural damage to any of its buildings as a result of the windstorms or the fire, according to Carrie Lujan, communications manager for the city, in a text Wednesday.
“We had minimal impact at city parks, with three trees down,” she wrote, in addition to several branches.
Landscape maintenance workers responded to 17 tree failures and 12 limb failures, mostly on backyard slopes, on paseos and in the public right-of-way, she added.
The online outage map for Southern California Edison, which is where the utility has referred all requests for information for the duration of the windstorm, was offline as of 2:45 p.m. Wednesday due to a service outage.
One significant outage reportedly left multiple businesses without power in the Valencia Commerce Center, forcing them to close their operations for the day, according to several sources familiar with those businesses.
Six Flags Magic Mountain was closed Wednesday due to inclement weather, according to the theme park’s website. It said that tickets that were purchased for Wednesday will be valid any other operating day through Dec. 31.
Both the Valencia and Canyon Country College of the Canyons campuses remained open on Wednesday. The college’s website stated that officials are closely monitoring the wildfire situation and if there are any updates they will update the notice and post additional information on the site.
