Sections of I-15 closed as more than 82,000 people flee Southern California wildfire

LOS ANGELES — A new wildfire spread Tuesday at a staggering pace through drought-parched canyons east of Los Angeles, growing to 10 square miles in a matter of hours and forcing the shutdown of a section of Interstate 15, the main highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

The fire was roaring through the San Bernardino Mountains, heading generally north but also east and west above the Cajon Pass.

The 15,000-acre blaze has prompted evacuation orders for about 34,500 homes and 82,000 people and includes the ski resort town of Wrightwood, scattered ranches and desert communities such as Phelan.

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued a state of emergency, San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman Travis Mason said Tuesday night.

A miles-long line of flames snaked along ridges, racing through chaparral that was dry as tinder after years of drought and days of dry summer heat in the 90s. Flames reached up to 80 feet in the air with tornadolike whirls coming off the main blaze reaching 100 feet, officials said.

The fire began about 10:38 a.m., on Highway 138, west of Interstate 15 between Lone Pine Canyon Road and Hess Road, San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman Eric Sherwin said at a news conference. The fire quickly established itself, making a moderate run up a slope, then wind on it and carried it across the highway, he said.

As of 8 p.m., more than 700 firefighters were working to control the fire that spans over 9,000 acres and is zero percent contained, the fire department said. The U.S. Forest Service and San Bernardino County Fire Department were managing the fire.

Numerous communities are under evacuation and numerous roads have been closed. Highway 138 is closed between I-15 and Interstate 215, Sherwin said. Lone Pine Canyon Road is closed at 138. Northbound I-15 is closed at I-215 and the southbound I-15 is closed at Bear Valley.

Interstate 215 is a 54.5-mile, north–south Interstate highway in Southern California’s Inland Empire. It is an auxiliary route of Interstate 15, running from Murrieta to northern San Bernardino.

Mandatory evacuation calls went out to 34,506 homes with more than 82,600 people, Sherwin said.

Some buildings had been lost, Sherwin said. He had no details, but televised images from the fire scene appeared to show at least two homes on fire.

“This fire is burning in significantly different terrains at multiple elevation levels,” Sherwin said.

Evacuated areas included the ski-resort town of Wrightwood, where some 4,500 people live; canyon communities containing clusters of large, scattered ranches; and sprawling high desert communities on the opposite side of the ridges.

Blue Mountain Farms, a horse ranch in Phelan, was in the path of the fire about 60 miles east of Los Angeles — just as it was for another fire in the area a year ago.

“Breathing smoke again, just like last year,” Shannon Anderson, a partner in the ranch, said as she panted into the telephone. “It’s raining ash.”

Ranch hands used hoses to wet down fences and anything else that could burn.

Six firefighters were briefly trapped by flames at a home where the occupants had refused to leave, forcing the crew to protect the house, fire officials said.

“We were fully engulfed in smoke,” county firefighter Cody Anderson told KCBS-TV. “It was really hard just to see your hand in front of your face.”

“We just hunkered down and sat there and waited for the fire to blow over,” he said.

Anderson and another firefighter were treated for minor injuries.

Las Vegas Review-Journal writer Raven Jackson contributed to this report. Contact Raven Jackson at rjackson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow@ravenmjackson on Twitter.