Image courtesy of Celeste Carmona

During the California heat wave, a total of three fires started. The Airport fire was expanding through Orange and Riverside county and it was spreading quickly.

In the past week, California has gone through a heat wave where the temperature reached as high as triple digits. As a result, there were a total of three fires around the area of Los Angeles and Orange County. Many people were forced to evacuate and the people closer to the area were preparing to evacuate as well. There were many properties that were destroyed by the fires.

The first fire that started was the Bridge fire. This fire broke out in the San Gabriel Mountains which is north of Los Angeles. It started on Sunday, September 8, 2024 and it was the largest fire of the three, with a total of 54,000 acres burned. The second fire was the Line fire, which was around the San Bernardino Mountains. This fire was able to expand with the wind, which pushed it toward the resorts around Big Bear Lake. The last and closest fire to us was the Airport fire, which began about 15 miles east of Irvine, California and was able to expand to the cities in Orange and Riverside Counties. The fire started near a flying field for remote-controlled model airplanes when one of them spontaneously malfunctioned.

Since the fires started, firefighters have been trying to contain the fires all day and night. But with heavy California rain these past couple of years, the plants and trees have grown and become more thick, which led the fires to expand more rapidly. Another issue is that there has been extreme winds near the mountains and in the Orange and Riverside counties, which caused the fires to spread and be harder to contain. These fires were so large that the Airport fire was visible all the way from Santa Ana and Anaheim. With the Line fire, because of the smoke and the ashes, the sky was a burning orange and ashy gray color. Many people were upset that their kids were still going to school in this weather knowing that there is a possibility that these kids could get sick from the smoke. 

Thankfully, the temperature has been going down, so far a total of 20 degrees below the week before with higher moisture levels. This is leading everyone to hope that the fires will be able to slowly get smaller which will help the firefighters contain them. This will help the firefighters get a break from fighting three fires at the same time.