Pilot Fire Surges To 11 Square Miles, Thousands Of Homes Threatened
CRESTLINE (CBSLA.com/AP) — The Pilot Fire has surged in size and put thousands of homes in potential peril in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The fire grew to 7,700 acres, more than 11 square miles, and was 6 percent contained Tuesday.
Mandatory and voluntary evacuations covered 5,300 homes in the Southern California fire area between mountain communities around Lake Arrowhead and the high desert city of Hesperia to the north, said Lyn Sieliet, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman. The number of people who left was not known.
The fire is not the only thing creating anxiety for residents -- at least one home has been looted, authorities said.
"You don't know who you can trust,"Lake Arrowhead Crystal Gomez resident said. "It's hard to have worry about your house burning down and random people coming in and raiding your house."
Meanwhile, southwest winds pushed the fire northward through the mountains toward the desert.
Schools in Hesperia were closed Tuesday as a precaution because of the fire's movement and two neighboring districts also shut down for the day due to poor air quality caused by smoke.
More than 900 firefighters aided by retardant-dropping air tankers and water-dropping helicopters had just 6 percent of the fire contained, but no structures had been lost since it erupted at 12:10 p.m. Sunday. The cause remained under investigation.
Smoke plumes roiling from flaming ridges of the San Bernardino Mountains blew all the way across the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas. Officials in southern Nevada issued an air quality advisory because of smoke from the fire more than 200 miles away.
Firefighters aided by 16 aircraft battled flames that spread across nearly 10 square miles on the northern side of the rugged mountain range east of Los Angeles.
People in some 375 homes were ordered to evacuate, authorities said.
Residents of about 5,000 more were advised that they may want to evacuate, the San Bernardino County sheriff's office said.
Helicopters sucked loads of water from nearby Silverwood Lake to douse flames leaping across slopes. Air tankers swooped low to paint the dry vegetation with pink fire retardant.
The fire erupted for an unknown reason Sunday.
Like some of the state's other fires this summer, the blaze burned near a popular recreation area. But Silverwood Lake's waters had been closed to swimming, fishing and boating since Aug. 4 because of an algae bloom.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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