More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in southern California on Tuesday as the Sandy Fire burned through dry hills above Simi Valley, about 30 miles north-west of Los Angeles. The fire, reported on Monday, had grown to more than 2 square miles by Tuesday morning and had destroyed at least one home.
Gusts that topped 30 mph pushed the flames early in the fire’s run, but calmer winds overnight gave firefighters a better chance to slow it down. By midday Tuesday, the blaze was 5% contained, with about 750 firefighters assigned to the fire and helicopters and air tankers working overhead.
Andrew Dowd said crews had made a lot of progress against the fire with the improved weather conditions, but the work was far from finished. Evacuation orders and warnings were still in place for several neighborhoods in Simi Valley, a city of more than 125,000 people, and firefighters were waiting to see whether they could deepen containment before the wind picked up again.
Los Angeles officials were also watching closely because of the fire’s proximity to the county line. Mayor Karen Bass said the Los Angeles Fire Department had deployed strike teams, a hand crew and helicopters to help local crews, but added that the city did not expect the wildfire to reach Los Angeles.
The larger concern for the region was not just the size of the burn but the speed at which the fire moved before crews could gain control. That made the overnight improvement important, but also temporary, since the weather that helped firefighters could shift again and reopen the same terrain to fast-moving flames.
A separate fire on Santa Rosa Island off the southern California coast added to the strain on fire crews. That blaze covered 23 square miles, destroyed a cabin and an equipment shed, and forced the evacuation of 11 National Park Service employees after what investigators said may have been a shipwrecked sailor firing at least two flares. The sailor was rescued without injury after spending the night on the island, and the National Park Service said it was still investigating the cause.
For Simi Valley and the neighborhoods around it, the immediate question is not whether the fire is serious. It is whether the current window of calmer weather is enough to hold the line before conditions turn harder again.
