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California wildfire sweeps across freeway, destroying vehicles 'We prayed to God': California wildfire sweeps freeway, destroying vehicles
(about 4 hours later)
A fast-moving wildfire has swept across a southern California freeway in a mountain pass, destroying 20 vehicles and sending motorists running to safety before burning at least four structures. Two people had minor injuries, authorities said. A few minutes before they had been on the vacation of a lifetime, but now Russell Allevato and his family were running for their lives from a raging brushfire that had trapped them and hundreds of other terrified people on a traffic-jammed highway connecting Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
The fire started in the Cajon Pass along Interstate 15 the main highway between Southern California and Las Vegas and quickly chewed through bone-dry brush. As flames closed in, drivers and passengers ran from their vehicles. “People were screaming. It was just crazy,” said Allevato, who watched helplessly on Friday afternoon as flames engulfed his rental car and destroyed everything inside it while he, his nephew and two teenage daughters fled to safety.
Lance Andrade, a 29-year-old railroad conductor from Apple Valley, was stopped in traffic when the fire jumped the freeway and panicked people started running toward him. He also ran, but with flames all around, there was nowhere to go. “We were surrounded by the flames. They were to the left, then in front of us and they came around to the right. We were in a big horseshoe in the middle,” he said as he spoke by phone from the safety of a California Highway Patrol vehicle.
A firefighter told everyone to take cover. Andrade, four other men, and two elderly women got inside the back of a semi-truck. One of the women had been separated from her family began crying, and everyone was terrified. The fire in the winding, mountainous Cajon Pass 55 miles northeast of Los Angeles began at about 2.30pm in drought-ravaged dry grass below the elevated lanes of Interstate 15. Pushed by 40mph winds, it raced up a hill and onto the traffic-clogged freeway, trapping literally hundreds of people amid a cauldron of smoke, flames and ash.
“You could hear the explosions from people’s vehicle tires popping from the heat,” Andrade said. “You could hear crackling, smoke was coming in every direction. You could feel the heat. We just waited it out and prayed to God.” “We had some highway patrolmen who said they had never seen fire travel that fast,” said Greg Kieran, a San Bernardino County Fire Hazmat specialist. “It just overran these people before they even knew what hit them.”
Russell Allevato, 45, of Southgate, Michigan, was traveling from Las Vegas to Los Angeles with his two teenage daughters, his nephew and his nephew’s girlfriend. Drivers and their passengers had no choice but to abandon their cars as the flames hopscotched down the freeway, destroying 20 vehicles, several of which exploded in fireballs.
“It was total smoke and all the cars just started to stack and the fire got closer to us, and everyone started running up the hill,” he said. “Hundreds and hundreds of people running up the hill.” Their rental car was among those destroyed. Four structures in the nearby rural community of Baldy Mesa also burned as the flames raced across 3,500 acres. The blaze was only 5% contained by early Saturday.
“All our stuff was charred and gone,” Allevato said by phone as he rode in the back of a California Highway Patrol vehicle. Amazingly, only two people were injured. Both suffered minor smoke inhalation, authorities said, but declined medical attention.
Television helicopters carried the scene live as the flames leapt from vehicle to vehicle while water-dropping helicopters and then firefighters on the freeway battled to get control. Among those trapped by the flames was Lance Andrade, a 29-year-old railroad conductor from nearby Apple Valley, who found himself caught in the traffic jam just as the fire jumped the freeway. Soon people were running toward him and he joined them, only to find there was nowhere to run. Flames had surrounded him and the others.
In the midst of the chaos fire officials said aircraft sent to douse the flames were briefly delayed after five drones were spotted above the blaze. It was the fourth time in a span of a month that a drone disrupted efforts to suppress a wildfire in southern California, US Forest Service spokesman Lee Beyer said. A panicked-looking firefighter ordered everyone to take cover, and Andrade said he huddled with four other men and two elderly women in the back of a tractor-trailer rig until the flames passed. One of the women, who had become separated from her family, began to cry. Everybody was terrified.
A car-carrying tractor-trailer and a boat were among the losses left smouldering on the highway. Dozens of vehicles were abandoned and hundreds of others turned onto side roads in the rugged area about 55 miles north-east of Los Angeles. “You could hear the explosions from people’s vehicle tires popping from the heat,” Andrade said. “You could hear crackling. Smoke was coming in every direction. You could feel the heat. We just waited it out and prayed to God.”
“It’s crazy, you’re watching black clouds and white clouds of smoke, there’s a ridgeline off to my right ... and it looks like any second flames will come over the ridgeline,” Chris Patterson, 43, said from his vehicle. Television helicopters carried the scene live as flames leapt from vehicle to vehicle while water-dropping helicopters and then firefighters on the freeway battled to get control.
As firefighters gained control on the freeway, the flames spread to 3,500 acres (1,416ha) and burned at least four structures in the rural community of Baldy Mesa. About 50 more were threatened. Firefighters’ initial effort was hampered by five drones that were being flown in the area when fire broke out, said Lee Beyer, a US Forest Service spokesman. He said several firefighting aircraft were delayed or diverted until the drones moved out of the area.
About 1,000 firefighters were battling the fire. It was 5% contained, Beyer said. Meanwhile, a car-carrying tractor-trailer rig and its cargo of eight automobiles went up in flames. So did a boat being transported by another vehicle.
California is in the midst of severe drought and wildfires are common. Some break out near freeways but it’s very unusual to have vehicles caught in the flames. Allevato and his family fled their rental car so quickly they left all the clothes and other belongings they had brought with them from Southgate, Michigan. The vehicle was reduced to a charred hunk of steel.
Some drivers did manage to get off the highway, turning onto rural side roads that quickly became clogged with traffic.
Nelly Venzor said she and several members of her family, including her 95-year-old mother, abandoned their car and received a ride to their home in nearby Hesperia from a stranger in a pickup truck.
“When the fire just jumped to the other side of the freeway I thought, ‘It’s really hot and my mom is in the car. And if we have to run. It has to be done now. Quick, before we get stuck here and roast,” Venzor said.
“People could not move their cars. People were running. I thought, ‘OK, this is it.’ I really did,” she said.
Also in Southern California on Friday, a forest fire broke out in the San Gabriel Mountains, forcing several hundred campers to flee and threatening structures in the community of Wrightwood. David Cruz, a spokesman for the US Forest Service, says the fire had spread to at least 25 acres of timber by late Friday.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sergeant Diane Hecht said 90 members of a Girl Scouts troupe fled a campground in Wrightwood by bus. She said additionally, up to 300 campers were evacuated from another campground in the area.
California is in the midst of severe drought, and wildfires are common. Some break out near freeways, but it’s very unusual to have vehicles caught in the flames.
It being a Friday afternoon, however, Interstate 15 was typically jammed with vehicles traveling between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Adding to the congestion was construction work going on in the area, said San Bernardino County Fire Captain Josh Wilkins.
Allevato and his family had left Las Vegas earlier in the day for Los Angeles, where they had hoped they might me the Kardashian sisters at the family’s West Hollywood clothing boutique.
Allevato’s 15-year-old daughter, Leah, was devastated.
“We waited two years for this vacation, and I saved all my money,” she said. “I was thinking about it every day, and I finally got here and I have no clothes … I waited so long, and it’s ruined.”