SoCal Fire Update: Another Blaze Erupts, Mudslides Feared

Another major fire has engulfed an area in Los Angeles County, as the Hughes Fire that started on Wednesday morning north of Santa Clarita and near Castaic has covered more than 10,000 acres and is only 14% contained.

According to Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, roughly 31,000 area residents threatened by the Hughes Fire were under evacuation orders and 23,000 under evacuation warnings by Wednesday night.

“We’re still expecting some dry humidity and then gusts of winds possible up to 60 mph,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief David Acuna said. “It’s super dry. Anyone spark will have a new start of a fire that establishes and raises quickly.”

Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Sheila Kelliher reassured the public, telling CNN that water supply should not be a problem, as fire crews have access to Castaic Lake and other reservoirs.

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However, a new problem may arise this weekend as rain is expected to fall, possibly causing mudslides. “The Los Angeles and San Diego areas will get more rain this weekend than in the last six months combined,” CNN reported.

“A lot of that rain may fall in a relatively short amount of time,” Ariel Cohen, who the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles, conjectured, which could lead to “the possibility of at least shallow debris flows, mudslides and landslides. The burn scars, with the widespread loss of trees, shrubs and vegetation, will have a much lower capability of handling the rain and will be more susceptible to failure. It behaves more like cement; the ground can’t accept the water, so it all goes to runoff immediately.”

The prospective mudslides could be dangerous, “taking down other structures and certainly be a threat to life and property,” Cohen said. Meanwhile, the catastrophic Palisades Fire, which has killed 11 people, burned more than 23,000 acres, and destroyed 6,662 structures, is still only 72% contained. The Eaton Fire, which killed 17 people and burned more than 14,000 acres, is 95% contained.