Hundreds of new evacuations across West as wildfires surge
Source: Associated Press
By JOHN ANTCZAK
Jun. 21, 2016 11:51 PM EDT
LOS ANGELES (AP) Surging wildfires on Tuesday forced new evacuations of hundreds of homes across the West, while firefighters began beating back a pair of big adjacent blazes looming over suburban Los Angeles.
Near the U.S.-Mexico border southeast of San Diego, a two-day-old, 9-square-mile wildfire moved toward a new community and forced the evacuation of about 600 homes and more than 1,500 people in Lake Morena Village. Previously only about 75 people had evacuated from that fire. It was 10 percent contained.
In the Los Angeles area, firefighters stopped the progress of two adjacent fires in the San Gabriel Mountains 20 miles northeast of downtown LA.
The blazes were 10 percent contained and had burned about 7 ½ square miles, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Nathan Judy said.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0d369887eb3e438a8faa6f9331c6c5e7/2-big-wildfires-la-area-foothills-burn-toward-each-other
I can smell the smoke as I type this.