8:30PM Some comments and information from TheFCBlog on the fire.
- Mt. Wilson Trail Resident Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I am directly across the canyon from where the fire has come over the ridge from the road. It is now 7PM and we have been watching since around 4. It is MUCh farther over the ridge now. We hear sirens in the canyon area below us and just heard that a voluntary evacuation of the canyon has started. The choppers and fixed wings are still dropping but the fire just keeps popping back up.
- x Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 7:39 pm sunrise hill is voluntary evacuation. the police are still getting hikers down from chantry!
- me Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 8:03 pm Camillo voluntary evacuation at about7:45
- x Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 8:06 pm 3 hail marys an our father and glory be to the helicopter pilots. if you live up there try and get the people off the streets that are looking. it sounds l;ike they are blocking fire and police
- William Says:
April 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm I looks so much worse when night falls. LA County said it would take a couple of days to contain. We’re lucky. Low wind.
And a quick pic and post from 91204 at the Sierra Madre Blog
7:30 PM Update. Fire shifted and moving towards homes in Sierra Madre. My friend Shane called me from the fire line. He grew up in Arcadia and was up there with friends. He just called. He advised that he is a “few blocks west” of Santa Anita Avenue in Sierra Madre ”with his good camera” and will get some pics. He said that there has been a flare up and the fire is straight up a hill some 300-400 feet from homes. As I type this I hear multiple sirens from the Monrovia Fire Dept, presumably heading that way.
7:20PM Update NBC 4 reported that there were 80-100 boy scouts in the area that are sequestered and will be escorted down in a few hours when the fire blocking one of their exits is under control. (NBC has no link on their site) KCBS has a short report and video. No homes threatened. Smokey and ashy here in outer monrovia…and damn I washed and waxed my wifes car this morning.

The fire is east of the Chantry Flats area of the San Gabriel Mountains according to LA County Fire and Arcadia Fire officers I spoke with. The fire is approx 2-3 miles north of the city limits from the top of Santa Anita Avenue. There are two small subdivisions near the end of Santa Anita Avenue and those homes are not threatened. With the wind blowing more or less north and east away from the community the fire officers I spoke with advised they did not think there would be any immediate threats to homes.
The could not answer what the cause might have been. Total burned one guess given to me was maybe 20-25 acres.
LA County Fire, US Forest Service Fire, Arcadia Fire and Sierra Madre Fire have units at the scene. There are also at least 2 helicopters dropping water. Pasadena PD and Sierra Madre PD were there helping Arcadia PD with traffic and crowd control.
Arriving on the scene it could have been a neighborhood block party. Neighbors talking about the last big fire in that general area right after Christmas 1999. One neighbor opined that the fire had been going since late morning and that there were fire trucks up and down the street all morning and with no sense of urgency. There were discussion plans if they were required to evacuate but they did not feel a sense of urgency as the fire was still relatively small.
Another neighbor told me that the fire really started smoking heavy and they could see flames come up over the ridge and climb the mountain.
I got a call from my neighbor Shane who saw the smoke and headed up there around 4PM (I was headed out by then). He said that around 4:30 – 4:45PM the fire seemed to erupt and start spreading faster with our “sun downer” winds. The smoke is much more visible from my house about 5 miles away and it is definitely drifting more east right now. More photos after the jump. Read the rest of this entry →
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