An early morning flareup by the El Dorado fire on Monday, Sept. 14, threatened the San Bernardino Mountains community of Angelus Oaks – prompting an urgent message from authorities that anyone who remained in the town should leave immediately.
Angelus Oaks was already under evacuation orders, issued last week.
The El Dorado fire has moved north of Highway 38 in the Mountain Home Village area, but firefighters were concerned Monday that the blaze, which elsewhere has stayed mostly south of the highway, may head north, possibly threatening communities that line the roadway.
Direct attacks on the fire will continue, but “we do anticipate that it will hit Highway 38 within the next 24 hours,” operation section chief Daniel Diaz said in a briefing just before 11 a.m.
Firefighters were looking at contingencies that they have already established to hold the fire, Diaz said.
The El Dorado fire, started by a smoke device set off at a gender-reveal photo shoot at a park in Yucaipa on Sept. 5, has burned 14,478 acres and was 44% contained as of Monday morning. Monday night, new statistics showed the blaze had grown to 16,490 acres with containment up to 53%. Containment is the percentage of the fire’s perimeter that will no long expand, because of firefighters’ work or barriers such as roads and bodies of water.
MAP: Where the El Dorado fire is burning in the San Bernardino Mountains
By midafternoon, Cal Fire spokeswoman Cathey Mattingly said the fire was continuing to burn northeast toward San Bernardino Peak.
“We have increased fire activity below Angelus Oaks,” in the Mountain Home Creek area south of the town, Mattingly said. “The fire is moving more intensely in a northern direction.”
Mattingly called the flareup a “very viable threat” to Angelus Oaks.
Set on Highway 38 in the San Bernardino National Forest, the unincorporated community of Angelus Oaks’ population is 535 as of 2010, according to data from the area’s ZIP code.
The nearby San Bernardino Peak Divide Trailhead is a destination for hikers heading into the San Gorgonio Wilderness. Along with homes and a small retail area, the town includes a post office.
Firefighters had already built a contingency line between the fire and the Angelus Oaks community to prepare for the possibility of the fire threatening it, Mattingly said.
Firefighters were in the town, Monday morning with more being sent to protect the community, “just as we did in Forest Falls and Mountain Home Village” earlier in the El Dorado fire, Mattingly said.
The fire was sending up a large plume of smoke, she said.
Temperatures spiked and winds strengthened around 2 a.m. Monday, Diaz said, pushing the fire into the Mountain Home Creek area.
He said the winds had since subsided and fire retardant was being dropped between the fire line and Angelus Oaks, along with other ground efforts. More than 1,300 firefighting personnel were at the scene Monday.
“Crews will continue to cut fire lines, and will be supported by air resources to reduce the momentum of the fire with water and retardant,” the Forest Service said in a Monday night update.
The weather was hot and dry throughout the fire area. A high temperature of 80 degrees was forecast Monday for Angelus Oaks, at 5,800-feet elevation, with a south wind 10 to 15 mph and gusts as high as 20 mph, the National Weather Service said.
Highs for the community were expected to reach 79 Tuesday.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued a smoke advisory for a wide area of Southern California under a pall from both the El Dorado and Bobcat fires.
In addition to Angelus Oaks, evacuation orders were in effect for Mountain Home, Forest Falls, 7 Oaks and the Barton Flats/Jenks Lake area.
The San Bernardino National Forest is closed until further notice because of fire danger. Highway 38 remained closed from Bryant Street to Onyx Summit.
At the fire’s height, about 20,000 people had been ordered evacuated, that number Monday was down to 3,467, firefighters said.
Evacuations were lifted Sunday for Yucaipa, Oak Glen and Mentone, and apple farms in the Oak Glen area began reopening for business.
Ten injuries from the fire scene have been reported. The blaze has four destroyed homes and damaged two others. Six other structures that were not dwellings were also burned, and four were damaged.
