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Wildfire Prompts Evacuations of 200 Homes in California
August 14, 2017
By The Associated Press
BANNING, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire tearing through brush east of Los Angeles on Tuesday has forced 700 people from their homes and destroyed a small building, officials said.
The fast-moving fire prompted the evacuation of at least 200 homes as it raced through 1.5 square miles of drought-dry hills near Banning, the Riverside County Fire Department said. It was 10 percent contained.
Two people were taken to hospitals with minor injuries.
An assisted living center with 10 seniors had to be evacuated as flames came within about 300 yards.
"We have some in wheelchairs, some in walkers, and some get along pretty well on their own," Richard Feenstra, owner of Cherry Valley Lodge, told the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "It took about 30 minutes to get everybody out of the building and across the street."
The blaze erupted shortly before 12:30 p.m. in the unincorporated Cherry Valley area and has thrown up a line of 25-foot-high flames. Winds gusting to about 20 mph and tinder-dry fuel are helping propel the blaze.
More than 300 firefighters and more than a dozen aircraft are battling the flames.
Residents of a mobile home park that were among the evacuees were allowed to return home several hours after the fire began.
Officials did not give a cause, but said they were seeking witnesses to the activities of children near the gate to a nature park where the fire started.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Image: A man in a dozer fights a wildfire as it burns near homes in the brush in Beaumont, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016. (Terry Pierson/The Press-Enterprise via AP)