Lake fire evacuation orders lifted as firefighters make progress in San Bernardino County
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- The Lake fire broke out at the Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area.
- More than 100 people were at the reservoir when the fire started and were forced to flee.
The Lake fire in San Bernardino County had blackened more than 480 acres as of Sunday night, but officials said crews were gaining some control, stopping the fire’s forward rate of spread.
Mandatory evacuations were reduced to warnings in the Summit Valley area south of Highway 138.
More than 100 people were temporarily stranded off a highway after fleeing 100-foot flames from the brush fire after it broke out late Saturday afternoon near a reservoir. The blaze prompted road closures and evacuations.
Amid hot, dry and windy conditions, the fire remained only 15% contained Sunday night, according to Chloe Castillo, a spokesperson for Cal Fire in San Bernardino County.
Visitors who left vehicles, camping gear or other personal belongings at the Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area as they fled are now allowed to return and retrieve them, Castillo said.
Cal Fire said visitors should go to a road closure checkpoint at Highway 138 and Highway 173 in Hesperia and be prepared to show identification. Castillo said California Highway Patrol officers will escort people to their belongings. The lake will be closed through Wednesday, and reservations that were booked have been canceled, she added.
The blaze broke out shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday at Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area, near Highway 173 and Cedar Springs Dam Trail. By 8:48 p.m. on Saturday, the fire had increased to 478 acres from 60 acres just hours earlier, according to Cal Fire officials.
More than 100 people were at the reservoir when the fire broke out and were forced to flee the flames. Boaters and jet skiers helped evacuate people away from the beach to another area where they were then taken to a roadside turnout on Highway 173, just north of the lake. Many people were wearing beach attire and flip-flops.
The warning, delivered at the county fire headquarters in East Los Angeles on Friday, serves as a stark reminder of how endless fire season can feel these days.
Shaun Kirkman and his girlfriend, Amber King, were among those who had to flee.
“I was west of the beach, fishing in vegetation,” Kirkman said. “The fire sounded like Velcro so I kept fishing, then it got louder. I saw 100-foot flames. Me and my girlfriend ran out of there.“
Gloria Orejel, spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, said about 75 to 100 people were camping in the area and had to evacuate with whatever they had on. She said park rangers helped transport people to another spot on the highway. As of 8 p.m., the group had been taken back to their vehicles.
Although evacuation orders were downgraded to warnings, road closures remained in effect, Castillo said. Highway 138 was closed from Highway 173 to Old Mill Road.
Fire crews were battling the blaze over the weekend both on the ground and in the air.
After an expected increase in humidity overnight, providing firefighters some relief, crews had to contend Sunday with drier conditions as well as gusting winds, which caused the smoke to billow and spread.
“They had a wind shift this afternoon around 12 o’clock ... at the fire’s head,” Castillo said. “It sent up lot of smoke so people were under the impression there was a new fire in the area. There wasn’t. It was the fire within the existing perimeter.”
But she warned that the weather in the desert was likely to make fire conditions worse in coming weeks and months.
“The hotter it gets, the drier it gets,” Castillo said. “A lot of the vegetation is still green, so that doesn’t look very good for coming months as it gets drier and hotter and all of this green vegetation dries out. It’s a fuel bed, a really large, dry bed.”
She urged homeowners to focus on defensible spaces around their homes, cleaning their gutters of debris and moving fireworks at least 150 feet from structures.
“If they don’t make sure [debris is] cleared away from their home, it’s going to ultimately catch their home on fire,” Castillo said.
The cause of the Lake fire remained under investigation.
Also burning in San Bernardino County on Sunday was the Cable fire, which had scorched 15 acres and was at 0% containment by evening, according to Castillo.
Evacuation orders for roughly half a dozen homes were being reevaluated because of the progress firefighters have made.
On Friday, Southern California fire chiefs warned that a season of devastating wildfires was likely amid low rainfall and dry conditions.
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