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Firefighters Battling Grand Fire Now At 3,500 Acres, Heading South

Conditions are a little cooler Thursday, but fire activity picked up this afternoon and the Grand Fire Incident has now torched 3,500 acres, said Corey Wilford, spokesman for the Kern County Fire Department.


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Containment is still at 15 percent, and the brush fire is being closely watched by Los Angeles County Fire Department officials.

“If it’s anything like my golf shot, it’s going to hook back to the left and into L.A. County,” said Fire Inspector Tony Akins of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. “But right now, the best we can tell it was paralleling the county line, and roughly paralleling the direction of (Interstate 5).”

The fast-moving, wind-driven wildfire that burned more than 3,000 acres throughout Wednesday afternoon, forcing evacuations and road closures in Los Padres National Forest near Frazier Park. First-responders arrived at the blaze around 2 p.m. Wednesday.

The winds were not as severe as they were Wednesday, but they are still a factor, Wilford said.

Wednesday’s evacuations are still in effect, as more than 1,000 units are battling the blaze, Wilford added.

Hungry Valley State Park and Piru Creek have been evacuated.

Frazier Mountain High School in Lebec was evacuated Wednesday afternoon, but the school is no longer in danger, Wilford said.

No injuries have been reported, and no structures are currently threatened.

“Temperatures are a little cooler, and every little bit helps,” he said. “We had a little bit of fire activity pick up today.”

Fire officials with Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Orange counties were on the scene for observation, assistance and equipment, but incident command was still being handled by Kern and Ventura counties, as well as the U.S. Forest Service.

The Sheriff’s Department also had a unit on the scene who was acting as a liaison for the local county resources involved in the blaze.

“Los Angeles County fire came what’s called an assisting agency,” Akins said. “We provide assistance and equipment. It looks like we have one engine assigned, a couple of water tenders a couple of helicopters, 10 of our hand crews and a couple of our dozer teams.”

 


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Firefighters Battling Grand Fire Now At 3,500 Acres, Heading South

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About Perry Smith

Perry Smith is a print and broadcast journalist who has won several awards for his focused, hyperlocal community coverage in several different regions of the country. In addition to five years of experience covering the Santa Clarita Valley, Smith, a San Fernando Valley native, has worked in newspapers and news websites in Los Angeles, the Northwest, the Central Valley and the South, before coming to KHTS in 2012. To contact Smith, email him at Perry@hometownstation.com.