Twin Southern California wildfires menace Reagan Library, Getty Museum,
homes
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[October 31, 2019]
By Omar Younis
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (Reuters) - A major
wildfire threatened thousands of homes and the Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library near Los Angeles on Wednesday as the fiercest Santa
Ana winds yet lashed Southern California, forcing meteorologists to
create new alert levels to warn of the danger.
The blaze erupted early on Wednesday morning in Simi Valley, northwest
of Los Angeles in Ventura County, and by nightfall had charred 1,300
acres (526 hectares) as crews fought to protect the Reagan library and
some 7,000 homes in the path of the flames.
The Easy Fire, which forced 26,000 people to flee, broke out some 30
miles (48 km) from a separate conflagration burning in shrub-covered
hills near the Getty Center museum that has displaced thousands of
residents from some of the city's most affluent neighborhoods.
The Getty museum houses a collection that includes paintings by Van
Gogh, Rembrandt and Manet, ancient Greek statues and an expansive array
of manuscripts.
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The Reagan Library, Getty Center and Getty Villa in Malibu were all
forced to close due to the flames and thick clouds of smoke, although
all three facilities were said to be out of imminent danger by evening.
"The dedication of our staff and the professionalism of our region's
first responders has been nothing short of heroic," Getty president Jim
Cuno said in a statement posted on the center's website.
The Santa Ana winds were blamed for a string of fire outbreaks across
Southern California.
In Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, a wind-driven brush fire
swiftly blackened 250 acres (101 hectares), forcing the evacuation of
hundreds of people from two mobile home parks and a nursing home, county
fire spokesman Rob Roseen said.
Weather conditions were at their worst, with fierce winds hurling
burning embers through the air across bone-dry brush to ignite spot
fires.
'THE FIRE OUTFLANKED US'
"The fire outflanked us very rapidly today, pushed by those 40- to
50-mile-per-hour (40- to 80 km per hour) winds," Ventura County Fire
Department assistant chief Chad Cook told reporters. "We did experience
gusts up to 65 miles per hour (105 kph) this morning, which made
long-range spotting very, very dangerous.”
He said erratic, high winds also forced intermittent grounding of
firefighting aircraft through the day.
The National Weather Service issued an unprecedented "extreme red flag"
warning for wildfires in Los Angeles and Ventura counties ahead of two
days of intense, dry wind gusts that were forecast to reach
near-hurricane force.
"I don't know if I've ever seen us use this warning," forecaster Marc
Chenard said. "It's pretty bad."
Statewide, the weather service issued alerts for "critical" or "extreme"
fire hazards covering more than 34,000 square miles (88,000 square km),
encompassing some 21 million people.
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Power was cut off to nearly 400,000 homes and businesses statewide on
Wednesday as a precaution by the state's largest utility, Pacific Gas
and Electric Co, a unit of PG&E Corp <PCG.N>, and other utilities.
The so-called Easy fire in Simi Valley broke out just before dawn off a
road named Easy Street, sending a wall of flames racing across
scrub-covered slopes at the edge of the hilltop Reagan Library, which
houses the late president's archives and memorabilia.
Pre-positioned strike teams of firefighters, backed by water-dropping
helicopters and airplane tankers dumping payloads of fire retardant,
swarmed the area as flames closed in on the library campus.
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![](../images/103119pics/news_a3.jpg)
A firefighter tackling the Dexter fire rolls up hose under palm
trees bending in the wind, in Riverside, California, U.S. October
30, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake
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'WE'RE SURROUNDED'
"We're surrounded. It's a scary situation. But I'm sure they'll get
on top of it," John Heubusch, the library's executive director, said
in an interview with KNX radio in Los Angeles during the firefight.
"It's as close as it gets."
By late morning, emergency crews had largely subdued flames, and the
fire moved off in other directions.
The blaze prompted public schools and at least five college campuses
in the area to cancel classes for the day. Health authorities were
handing out disposable air filter masks to members of the public at
five cites around the county.
On nearby ranches, residents in the protective face masks scrambled
to coax nervous horses and other livestock into trailers to drive
them to safety.
"As long as we get up, get out of here, get the car moving,
everything else can be replaced in theory so you know breathing at
the end of the day is better than not breathing at the end of the
day," resident David Pollack told Reuters.
The Santa Ana winds are a regional weather phenomenon that sends
gusts westward off the desert to the east, through mountain passes
toward the coast. They were forecast to reach sustained speeds of 50
to 70 mph (80 to 110 kph) on Wednesday and Thursday.
Investigators say the Getty fire was likely caused by a broken tree
branch blown into power lines during high winds on Monday morning.
It spread, consuming 745 acres (300 hectares) by Wednesday morning,
with about a quarter contained by firefighters. At least 12 homes
have been destroyed.
In northern California, firefighters struggled for a sixth day
against the 76,000-acre (30,760-hectare) Kincade fire in Sonoma
County's wine country. That blaze has destroyed at least 189 homes
and other structures but was listed as 30 percent contained on
Wednesday.
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PG&E acknowledged last week that the Kincade fire started near a
damaged transmission tower at about the time a live high-voltage
line on that tower malfunctioned.
The company filed for bankruptcy in January, citing $30 billion in
potential liability from a series of deadly fires sparked by its
equipment in 2017 and 2018.
As many as 190,000 people were displaced at the height of the
Kincade fire, but some evacuations have since been lifted.
(Reporting by Omar Younis in Simi Valley, Jonathan Allen in New
York, Andrew Hay in New Mexico and Steve Gorman, Alex Dobuzinskis
and Dan Whitcomb in Culver City, California; Editing by Sandra
Maler)
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