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Mudslides hamper tired firefighters

A Kern County firefighter takes a man and child to a helicopter as Erskine Creek rises around their home in Lake Isabella, California, on Sunday. PHOTO: AP

Violent thunderstorms brought rain bursts that modestly helped firefighting efforts on Sunday, but the downpours also triggered mudslides that complicated California’s unfolding wildfire disaster.

“If it isn’t fire, it’s flood. If it isn’t fire or flood, it’s the mud,” said Christina Lilienthal, an interagency fire spokeswoman. A “horrendous” amount of precipitation in the Sequoia National Forest dampened the ground, but also caused a creek to flood, cutting off a firefighting crew’s escape route when a road washed out, she said.

The firefighters did not need the escape route, because fires burning nearby did not threaten them. They moved to higher ground as a precaution against the rising waters, Lilienthal said.

A huge mudslide in an area that was devastated by wildfires last year damaged about 50 homes and caused the temporary closure of a main road in the California town of Independence on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Severe thunderstorms on Saturday set off the mudslide, which was 274m wide and up to 90cm deep, said Carma Roper, spokeswoman for the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department.

The mud oozed across California Highway 395, prompting a detour, and some mud reached the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

Residents of more than 50 homes were evacuated, she said. The rain did nothing to help with the fires, which were not burning in that easternmost corner of California.

And no rain fell on most of the other California fires. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said 288 blazes were still burning around the state, most in the mountains ringing the northern edge of the Central Valley.

There was no rain in Butte County, north of Sacramento, where thousands of homes were threatened as recently as Friday. But moist air and calmer winds on Sunday morning helped firefighting efforts in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Thousands of people who were evacuated from their homes twice in the past month began returning to Paradise for the first time since Tuesday.

About 300 homes remained threatened in and around the town, down from 3,800 homes on Friday, and officials said the fire was 55 percent contained.

An evacuation order was lifted on Sunday for the nearby town of Concow, one ridge away from Paradise and prone to strong winds, Butte County and fire officials said.

Fifty homes were destroyed and one person was apparently killed in the area last week when wind-propelled flames jumped a containment line. The person’s charred remains were found on Friday in a burned-out home; the cause of death had not been determined.

The Butte County blazes were among hundreds of wildfires to blacken nearly 3,100km² and destroy about 100 homes across California since an enormous lightning storm ignited most of them three weeks ago.
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