SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – There are only so many words to describe what’s happening in Los Angeles.
“I’ve been here since the beginning of the fire itself and it’s been a crazy firefight,” Nathan Judy, Cleveland Nation Forest
Judy, nine fire engines, a helitanker, and others from the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County are on the ground battling to contain and stop the spread of the Eaton Fire in Altadena.
“For our wildland folks, they’re going out there and cutting line in the forest itself,” Judy said. “Again, with either dozers or hand line to create a buffer zone between the unburned fuel and the fuel that’s already been burned that may have some hotspots.”
Aircraft are also being used by the Forest Service crews to re-enforce those lines and douse those hotspots in areas they can’t get to safely.
“Yesterday we had a lot of the large air tankers dropping retardant on the ridge line where we think the fire would want to go to,” Judy said.
Judy told ABC 10News they have crews in place to stop the spread if embers are kicked up by the Santa Ana winds into communities or the forest.
“We really want to connect the dots; where the lines that we’ve already put into where the lines we need to put in to put a containment line all the way around this fire so we can get this thing out,” Judy said.
Locally, San Diego County’s in its own red flag warning.
“Those established fuel breaks have been out there. We know where those are. We strengthen those every year to make sure in case a fire did break in any area,” Judy said.
Judy said Cleveland National Forest bolstered it’s staffing here to replace the crews that’ve gone up north and more so we’re still prepared.
“So we have pre-established lines that are out there. We’ll go out there and make sure that those lines are still good. We’ll do pre-treatments, we’ll do post-treatment and we’re always looking to do more,” Judy said.
