Calif. residents flee wildfires as flames lap roads and trees explode
TEHACHAPI, Calif. — Two wildfires that erupted and spread quickly in Southern California have destroyed dozens of homes and forced evacuations in remote areas of the state's Kern County.
The most destructive of the fires was burning about 10 miles southeast of Tehachapi, a city located in a mountainous area between Bakersfield and Mojave.
More than 30 homes were lost in the small hill community of Old West Ranch and another 150 structures were threatened, firefighters said Tuesday. The area is about 70 miles north of Los Angeles.
Kern County Fire Department Engineer Anthony Romero said the fire erupted at about 3 p.m. and quickly grew to more than 500 acres.
About 200 firefighters were on the scene, along with water-dropping aircraft.
"The wind has been a big factor. It's changing on us a lot," Romero said.
There was zero containment, Romero said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
A Red Cross shelter for displaced residents was set up at the Old Jacobs Jr. High School in Tehachapi. By late Tuesday, only 11 people had checked in, said shelter manager Leonard Arends.
Close-knit residents
Arends, who lives in Tehachapi, described the Old West Ranch area as a mix of mobile homes and large new stucco homes surrounded by heavy pine and oak brush. He said the residents are a close-knit group of people, many of them retirees.
Wayne Butchko, a resident who fled to the shelter with his two dogs Feather and Coco, said the fire spread so rapidly he didn't even have time to grab his dentures.
"I could feel the heat on my back," he told the Bakersfield Californian.
"I could see the flames, and the trees were just popping with explosions," Butchko told the paper.
Another resident, George Plesco, told the paper his home was destroyed.
"When I first saw it, it was a small fire, but with the wind and the trees it just blew down the canyon."
Exploding propane tanks blew debris a 100 feet in the air, he told the newspaper, adding that his cats ran fled at the sound of the roaring flames.
"My stomach's in a knot," he said.
Wyant Winsor, 52, a delivery driver for the local school district, was working on property he owns in Old West Ranch when he saw the first smoke at about 2:20 p.m. and watched as it grew rapidly over the next half hour.
When the fire department told him to evacuate, he parked his tractor in a clearing and made a run for it.
"Hopefully it'll be OK. I guess I'll know tomorrow, he said with a nervous laugh.
'There was no time'
Winsor said he and a friend drove down the road through the fire with flames lapping at his truck on both sides, barely able to see the road in front of them through the smoke.
Trace Robie, a housewife who lives on Old West Ranch, said the fire grew very quickly and spread through the dry brush, old oaks and pines on the steep hillside.
She grabbed a handful of clothes, her dogs, her cat, a dish to give her pets water and her purse. "I always said I'd grab my photo albums but there was no time. I didn't even think about it," she said.
In northern Kern County, a wildfire in Sequoia National Forest burned more than 11,000 acres, or 17 square miles. It earlier destroyed six homes and forced the evacuation of a camp for juvenile offenders near Kernville. It was five percent contained.
The cause of the blaze, which began Monday, is under investigation.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency for Kern County on Tuesday, freeing up state resources to battle the fires.
In far northeastern California, crews have 80 percent containment of lightning fires that have burned 250 acres of timber in Lassen County.