Day: May 3, 2013

New Fires at Monterey/SLO Co line?

UPDATE: both local incidents contained. Tres Pinos final acreage was 400. On another note, Springs was up to 28,000 acres, PCH still closed, and a VLAT, the DC-10 is on tap for Saturday.

1:15 pm – Tres Pinos has jumped the road, now 100 acres and making a run.

1:00 pm – BEU is requesting diversion of aircraft from the Bradley incident to the Tres Pinos incident at Highway 25 where a 5 acres brushfire with a rapid ROS is threatening homes. BEU is the call sign for Monterey/San Benito Cal Fire.

12:30 pm – KION just tweeted of spot fires at the SLO/Monterey county line, and Cal Fire tweeted of diversion of resources from Springs Fire to SLO. Monterey Strike Team and a unit from Ft Hunter Leggett have responded to 20 small fires along Highway 101. Speculation is that it was probably someone pulling a trailer, dragging a chain.

Springs Wildfire

7:00 am – this Springs fire has now grown to 10,000 acres. There is another fire of similar size, the Panther fire up in Northern California. It started on May 1, but is not threatening any homes, so is getting a lot less media attention.

5:00 am – Overnight, this fire exploded to over 8,000 acres. PCH is closed at the LA/Ventura Co. Line. It has reached the great blue fire break and is traveling laterally. Over 1000 personnel are fighting this fire, and mandatory evacuations are in place in several areas. The wall of fire video taken during the night and shown on CBS’s National News was astounding. As XT asks, has a fire of this magnitude ever happened this early in the season before? Very spooky.