A fire that broke out two weeks ago is still threatening thousands of homes in Southern California. Six more fire trucks from Arizona were dispatched Saturday, bringing the total to 168 Arizona firefighters in California right now.
Tiffany Davila is with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management. She said these latest firefighters are standing by in case dangerous wind gusts return.
"They want to get some people staged in case they do get some more high gusty winds. That way they’ve got firefighters there, they’ve got them prepositioned, in case they need to do some initial attack," Davila said.
They may also relieve firefighters who have been working for two weeks straight.
"We don’t know when the firefighters are going to be coming home," Davila said. "They could be coming home this week … they should be home for Christmas. But, that’s up to California when they’re gonna release our resources."
The California wildfires have forced over 100,000 people to evacuate their homes. About $110 million has been spent fighting the massive blaze. At present 45 percent of the Thomas Fire, which has claimed two lives, one of them a firefighter, has been contained. Joining us now with an update is Lance Orozco, news director at KCLU in Thousand Oaks, California, in Ventura County.
