Crews Work To Keep Large Brush Fire In Banning From Getting To Homes

BANNING (CBSLA.com) — Crews continued to battle a large brush fire that broke out near Banning Monday afternoon and may have been accidentally sparked by a beehive.

The Mias Fire broke out about 4 p.m. Monday along Mias Canyon Road and Bluff Street, about a mile-and-a-half north of the 10 Freeway. It had burned 540 acres as of Tuesday morning. It was just 5 percent contained.

Jose Quezada and his brothers live in West Covina, but they bought a ranch near Banning several years ago.

"It's more for my dad and my mom, because we came from Mexico and we used to live on a ranch. My dad loves the ranch," Quezada said.

When neighbors told him that a wildfire broke out near the property, he rushed over and was happy to see that his home had been saved. But much of their land and a small chapel they had built had burned.

Investigators say it appears the fire started accidentally. A bee hive weakened some tree branches which fell and knocked over a power line. Unfortunately the fire spread quickly, burning more than 600 acres of dry brush.

The fire appears to be burning into the canyons away from homes in Banning and the Morongo Indian Reservation. But homeowners are still nervous.

"Every time, you don't know if the wind is going to shift. Right now the wind is going southeast, and it's shifting, it's going north, so it could loop around and get us," Scott Reeder said.