ALBUQUERQUE, June 21 (UPI) — Two wildfires in California’s San Gabriel mountains came close to merging Tuesday and creating one giant inferno as hundreds of residents were evacuated.
Officials said the Reservoir fire appeared to have been ignited by a car crash after a pickup truck ran off the road on Monday and plunged into a canyon near the city of Azusa, Calif. An hour later, a second blaze, called the Fish fire, broke out in the nearby town of Duarte and quickly spread to about 3,000 acres. Together, the two fires now cover more than 5,000 acres.
The two fires came close to joining to become one large fire, but were stopped by a canyon between them, firefighters said.
“It’s moving fast,” said Capt. Keith Mora of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, talking about the Fish fire. He said firefighters are working in “extremely dry conditions” and very high temperatures to contain the fire. The temperature in Duarte late Monday was 109 degrees.
Another fire burned 7,500 acres near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego County, Calif., and forced the mandatory evacuation of the town of Potrero.
The largest fire in the southwest is California’s Sherpa fire in the Santa Ynez Mountains of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The U.S. Forest Service said late Monday the fire, which has consumed nearly 8,000 acres, had been 62 percent contained by nearly 2,000 firefighters.
The U.S. Forestry Service has identified about three dozen wildfires burning across eight western states, fueled by triple-digit temperatures, ongoing drought conditions and low humidity.
Several hundred residents will be allowed to return to their homes near Albuquerque, N.M. on Wednesday as firefighters brought the Dog Head fire to 46 percent containment.
Close to 1,000 firefighters have been fighting the Dog Head fire for the last seven days.
Officials said Monday the fire was human-caused.
Temperatures across the Southwest remained high Tuesday. Record highs were recorded Monday in Phoenix, Ariz., where it hit 116 degrees; Las Vegas, Nev., saw 114 degrees, Palm Springs, Calif., hit a record 122 degrees, and in the California desert, Needles and Death Valley broke records with temperatures of 121 and 126, respectively.
