Forest Fire Burns Close to Californian Ski Resort
A large fire continues to burn less than a mile from historic Mt Baldy ski resort in California, which has been under an evacuation order for about a week.
A large fire continues to burn less than a mile from historic Mt Baldy ski resort in California, which has been under an evacuation order for about a week.
The Vista Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest has grown to nearly 3,000 acres and has around 725 firefighters tackling it, it’s reported to be about 30% contained.
The fire expanded during five days of unrelenting heat and low relative humidity levels but there have finally been cooler temperatures to subdue it a little this weekend and the threat to the ski area is thought to have lessened over the last 24 hours.
"The potential for gusty outflow winds will test containment lines, and dry lightning strikes could lead to new fire starts," a statement from the US Forest Service explains, continuing, "The incident management team has staged initial attack crews who are ready to augment forest resources and respond to any new starts on the forest."
The Vista Fire ignited only a few weeks after the South Fork / Salt Fire complex threatened Ski Apache ski area in New Mexico and burnt properties in the ski town of Ruidoso, including a historic ski shop. The status of the ski resort remains unclear, it posted on June 17th that it was closed for summer operations due to the fire until further notice and has not provided any update since.
There have been a growing number of forest fires close to ski resorts in recent years, including fires that destroyed all or most of the structures at Selwyn ski area in Australia and at Sierra at Tahoe in California, both of which have since been rebuilt.
