Valley Fire At 17,565 Acres And 11% Contained, Firefighting Efforts Continue

September 9, 2020 at 10:16 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:53 Speaker 1: 01:24 Speaker 2: 01:30 Speaker 1: 01:53 Speaker 2: 02:02 Speaker 1: 02:42 Speaker 2: 02:56 Speaker 1: 03:43 Speaker 2: 03:53 Speaker 1: 04:21 Speaker 2: 04:30 Speaker 1: 05:23 Speaker 2: 05:27 Speaker 1: 06:06 Speaker 2: 06:20 Speaker 1: 07:04 Speaker 2: 07:19 Speaker 1: 07:54 Speaker 3: 08:11 Our top story on midday edition firefighters battling the Valley fire South of Alpine. Got a break last night as strong off shore Santa Ana winds didn't develop until early this morning as the fight against the Valley, fire continues, 20 homes have burned KPBS reporter, Matt Hoffman spoke yesterday to Irving Beeman. He and his wife on Saturday suffered the destruction of their Hummel home, where they'd live for 20 years. I don't know whether it's really sunk in. I haven't cried. My, I woke up the last two nights with my wife. I'm hearing her crying in bed and she says like, it's unfathomable. Joining me live from the fire base camp near Alpine is Cal fire captain Thomas chutes. Welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me or more homes were a lost a yesterday. Give us an update on the damages now. Yeah, so, so 20 homes destroyed and I should clarify the damage inspection teams have been out and about these last few days. So it's really the numbers catching up with themselves. We didn't lose any homes yesterday. We're just, um, it, it takes a long time to figure out, um, what was damaged. We have a lot of residents, we have outbuildings and stuff, so trying, trying to, uh, classify all that stuff takes some time. So, um, those, those homes did burn over the weekend and, uh, we are, we're up to 20 homes destroyed and four damaged at this point. So everybody's getting back in and really assessing things as literally the smoke clears in some of these areas, Definitely in our damages inspection teams are, are a huge part of that. Obviously our firefighters, we want them to remain focused on the firefight, but it's important to do these inspections because we want to open back up these neighborhoods and for the people who, who sadly lost their homes, we want to make sure that they can get the process going on there. Uh, they're on to, uh, um, start working through that. This is a rural area we're talking about South of, uh, Alpine there. Uh, where were the homes that, uh, that were burned located? Are they grouped in a particular area there? You know, we had, we had a lot of, uh, homes kind of on the Western part of the fire on the loss and value community. Um, it, it seemed to suffer the most. I would was closer to where the fire initially took off. And, um, th the area is interesting. You know, there's a lot of homes kind of spotted throughout the vegetation. Um, it's a very, um, a very rural spot, but we still have a lot of folks living out there. And a lot of folks love living out there. And so to see any kind of, uh, any kind of loss of homes is, is horrible, but, um, fortunately everybody did make it out. We haven't had any loss of life. And, um, just, just to, uh, to injuries at this point, it was, uh, uh, minor entries to firefighters. And we got a bit of a break with a winds last night. A lot of us got that alert on our phones and on the TV and the red flag warning and all, but, uh, the winds didn't really come until very early this morning, right. That was a, that was a great sign for us. You know, we had, we were to, uh, make a lot of progress yesterday. It's stayed pretty overcast over the fire. Um, the, the Wednesday to Bay, the temperatures were lower. And so we knew that we were expecting that those wind conditions, and we work very closely with the national weather service on, um, on, on preplanning for stuff like that. Um, but it doesn't always come to fruition, how it's expected. And so these winds were still very strong out here this morning, but the winds hit, um, you know, in the early morning hours, we were able to, uh, hold the perimeter of the fire. Um, during that time and out here now, it seems like things have, uh, have significantly died off and as a huge benefit to us, it means we can, uh, continue being as aggressive as ever to really try and button up the perimeter of this fire. Now what's the forecast look like for the rest of today? I think that red flag warning we were all told was, was in effect to late PM, but it sounds like the wind has given you a break. Yeah, they certainly are. It's still gusty in these areas. Um, a lot of times it's kind of, uh, uh, kind of misleading because we, we have, you know, most of us live in the city areas of populated areas. And a lot of times these winds are coming through, um, these bound passes into a lot more gusty than we might feel, um, when we're out and about town. So they're definitely still feeling on the fire. There's definitely still a threat there, but it is nice to not have that, that strong Santa Ana push, um, going to go going across this fire. And these fires are very capricious, as we all know. Uh, what do you expect might happen with the fire today? You expect more evacuations, for example, We're, we're hoping not. We, you know, we always, uh, preplanned for that and we work closely with our law enforcement partners and OES to, to come up with a plan so that we do have to move in that direction. We, we have areas predesignated, uh, depending on which way the fire, um, you know, which way the fire started pushing. Um, but as of right now, we're, we're comfortable with the evacuation warnings and orders that are in place we're hoping, uh, not to have to issue any more, but, uh, we're, we're certainly not at the point where, um, we're letting our guard down. We have, uh, you know, just as many firefighters as, as we did, uh, yesterday out there on the line, um, punching in dozer line, um, cutting hand line and really trying to create that perimeter around the fire, um, and mop up the area. You know, we can, we can cut a line around the fire, but if we don't cool down the embers that are right along the line, um, it doesn't take much to really push those over. And so that's a, that's a huge push for us right now. And that's really what we're focused on these next couple days. And do we know how many people remain evacuated from their homes at this point? Yeah, we have just over 1400 people evacuated from their homes. And, um, we, we really, uh, we really do appreciate the, the public support with everything. Um, it's, it's incredibly frustrating to be away from your home. And it's incredibly frustrating to have these road closures. This is, this is their home. This is their area. There's not a whole lot of ways in and out. So, um, we, we know it's a, we know it's difficult. We really want to make sure that, um, we can stay in their work safely, do our job and, and get everything back to, uh, back to, to safe so that we can get these folks back in their home, but we still need the public support, um, for a little bit longer while we, uh, continue to, to make their area safe. Oh, the number of acres burned hasn't changed much since yesterday. I think the website says about 17,000. That mean firefighters getting the upper hand. Is there an increase in the percentage on containment, which we all look for, the kind of the box score of these fires? Yeah, so, so we're a 11% contained. The acreage is, is staying the same. We really don't want to jump the gun on, on adding containment. Um, we're, we've been doing a very good job getting mine around this fire. Um, but we have to, we have to mop it up and we have to do a good job, mopping it up. Um, we we've seen fires in the past where, um, you know, over a week after the area, the fire had burned through, um, ambers get kicked up and get thrown across the line. So, um, we're kind of in a situation where we're very happy with the way that the weather is kind of, um, you know, played into us. We're going to continue, uh, working hard on those lines and we're not gonna, we're not going to celebrate too early. We're going to just keep chipping away and trying to train to make these communities safe again. And we've talked about the help from the aerial support in this fire. We had a six additional military health helicopters helping in the fight since Monday. Uh, how helpful have they been? And of course the question is begged couldn't. They have been deployed on Saturday when the fire started, The military is incredibly helpful. It's such a unique, um, uh, cooperative agreement that we have with the military out here. It's, um, it's unique to Cal fire San Diego and, and we're very grateful to have their help. Um, we've, we've had a lot of aircraft out here this weekend. We had a lot of aircraft, um, just in general, San Diego County has a lot of aircraft, um, standing by and ready for any kind of fire. So we have, uh, SDG that provides, um, air support, Cal fire, of course, with fixed in and rotor wing. We have the San Diego Sheriff's helicopters. We have the U S forest service helicopter. So we have a lot of assets that I have to cut you off there, captain we're just out of time, but I have been speaking with Cal fire, captain Thomas chutes for more information, go to kpbs.org. Thank you. Thank you. [inaudible].

By KPBS Public Media

In total, the fire has destroyed 20 "habitable structures" and 17 "minor structures" and resulted in two injuries, though it was not clear if the victims were firefighters or civilians.