The Canyon Fire has burned about 5,370 acres and burned toward Castaic High School Friday afternoon, but did not damage the school, according to officials with Ventura County Fire Department.
By Friday evening, all mandatory evacuation orders had been lifted and reduced to evacuation warnings.
Around 1:45 p.m., the fire crossed over the ridge near Castaic High School and crews assigned a bulldozer line, with air attack requesting two additional air tankers and a lead plane to assist with laying down retardant lines, according to the Watch Duty app.
The fire reached 28% containment as of 4:23 p.m. Friday, according to Andrew Dowd, public information officer with the Ventura Fire Department.
The fire has burned down two minor structures. Dowd confirmed they were not homes or commercial buildings.
There have been no reported injuries as of Friday afternoon except for one minor firefighter injury, Dowd said. Radio dispatch traffic also indicated that at least one firefighter was given medical transport later in the day after their emergency vehicle rolled down the side of the road near the scene of the fire. The state of the firefighter’s injuries is unknown as of the publication of this story.
“So, it continues to be a safe operation. And when you think about what firefighters went through yesterday to go through the kind of work they were doing in the extreme heat and physical conditions to be able to do that without injury, that’s just phenomenal,” Dowd said.
Dowd added that the cause of the fire is still under investigation and could take weeks before the cause can be concluded.
Evacuation orders and warnings remain in place as of Friday morning. Areas under evacuation orders stretch from Piru to portions of Val Verde, Romero Canyon, Oak Canyon, and Hasley Canyon.
Evacuation warnings remain in place as of Friday morning for multiple evacuation zones adjacent to those areas, including the most-populated areas of Val Verde, as well as portions of Castaic and Valencia west of Interstate 5.
The fire began on Thursday afternoon, initially reported as burning 30 acres, and by 9:50 p.m. exploded to 4,856 acres.
There are about 400 firefighters fighting the blaze, according to Dowd.
“So (Friday night), we are going to continue to take advantage of the cooler temperatures. We are not going to let our guard down. The fire is still burning in certain areas … our firefighters are going to remain vigilant and aggressive in going out after this fire. We’re going to continue to provide structure protection and structure defense in areas where structures (may be) threatened,” Dowd said.
Dowd added that the plans for overnight would continue with a coordinated attack between ground forces and aerial assets.
“We’re not going to hold aircraft circling around unless there are targets that we need them to put retardant down,” Dowd said.
About 2,700 residents and 700 structures were in the evacuation zones that were in place Friday morning, with about 14,000 residents and over 5,000 structures in evacuation warning zones, Dowd said.
“So, any structure that is in an evacuation border, those are structures that we’re concerned about. But these jurisdictional boundaries are fluid, as such that this evacuation, the fire behavior is somewhat fluid, meaning that it can be burning in one area, spreading towards an area, moving away from another,” Dowd said.
The areas that were under an evacuation order as of Friday morning included CAS-VALVERDE-B, CAS-VALVERDE-D, CAS-OAKCANYON, CAS-HASLEY, CAS-ROMERO, CAS-GOLDENSTATE-C, CAS-GOLDENSTATE-D, according to the Watch Duty app.
By Friday evening, those orders were reduced to warnings.
Areas that were in evacuation warning zones Friday included CAS-INDUSTRY, CAS-GOLDENSTATE-B, CAS-CAMBRIDGE, CAS-HILLCREST, CAS-GREENHILL, CAS-SLOAN, CAS-VALVERDE-A, CAS-VALVERDE-C, according to Watch Duty.
Road closures on Friday were only at Hasley Canyon Road at Del Valle Road at the time of this publication, according to Officer Carlos Burgos-Lopez, PIO for the California Highway Patrol Newhall-area Office.
Dowd wanted to impress on the community that all the firefighters are working to ensure residents’ safety and that they are here for them.
“Bringing together L.A. County Fire, L.A. City Fire, Ventura County Fire, U.S. Forest Service, Cal Fire, bringing all these agencies together so quickly and in such a coordinated effort, I think should give residents a lot of a lot of comfort to know that their fire department and their surrounding fire agencies are here for them,” Dowd said.
To see the Genasys Protect evacuation map, visit protect.genasys.com.
This is a breaking news story, and additional information will be added as it becomes available.
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