SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Lisa Gregory has kept a close eye on the weather since fleeing her home in the woods as a wildfire advanced in Southern California. She doesn't know when she can return or whether her house was still standing.
The uncertainty "is an awful feeling," Gregory said as she lounged in a lawn chair under a tree outside an evacuation center.
Firefighters made major gains Thursday against the wildfire that broke out Tuesday in the mountains and desert 60 miles east of Los Angeles. Driven by wind, the fire chewed through tall grasses and drought-parched shrubs, torching an unknown number of homes and vehicles.
The blaze covering nearly 58 square miles was 26 percent contained by early Friday, and plans were in the works to begin demobilizing some of the nearly 1,600 firefighters by afternoon.
"Crews really buttoned up some areas. But the possibility is still there for explosive growth," fire spokesman Brad Pitassi said.
That concern was especially focused on an area southeast of the mountain town of Wrightwood where old-growth brush and trees haven't burned in 70 years, fire behavior analyst Brendan Ripley said.
Elsewhere, the fire's growth was limited because the land had become a moonscape.
"The fire burned so intensely that there's no fuels left for it to move again," Pitassi said.
A small number of evacuees have been allowed to return home, but Pitassi could not say when all evacuations would be lifted. Some 82,000 residents were under evacuation orders at the height of the fire.
Read Saturday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.