La Cañada Flintridge residents kept a wary eye this week on the Creek Fire raging, uncontained, in the hills near Sylmar and Sunland. By midday Wednesday, it had burned more than 11,000 acres, destroyed at least 30 structures and spurred widespread evacuations.
Though it didn’t immediately threaten LCF, the blaze affected business in town, where traffic slowed because of Tuesday’s 210 Freeway closure.
La Cañada Unified School District managed to find substitutes Tuesday to fill in for at least six staffers who couldn’t make it to work because of the fire and at least 16 others who left at midday to evacuate their homes, Superintendent Wendy Sinnette said.
Music teacher Jimmie Myers, a Tujunga resident, was among them: “I checked my email and saw Wendy Sinnette had sent an email and said, ‘Hey, if you need to leave school to deal with a fire evacuation, you’re more than welcome.’
“So I looked at an evacuation map and saw my house was in the mandatory evacuation zone. … I had a class coming in as I read that and I said, ‘Guys, I’m sorry, but I have to go.’”
Public safety personnel from LCF also were involved, including sheriff’s officials who were helping out with evacuations, crowd control and property protection, in addition to dedicating members of the Arson Explosive Detail to assist on an investigation into the origins of the fire, according to Sgt. Alan Chu.
On Tuesday evening, the Twitter account for the Montrose Search and Rescue team, which includes LCF residents, posted: “Our team is back home now after our initial 12-hour response to the #creekfire. We helped a man leave his home, his cars were on fire, and fire was all around us. We knew it would be the last time he saw his home. He lost everything today.”
LCF residents can sign up for “Alert LCF,” the city’s emergency notification system, which issues time-sensitive messages via phone, text and email about emergencies and other important community news. For more information, visit lcfca.gov/alert.
To monitor an updated map of Creek Fire evacuations, visit bit.ly/CreekFireMap.
LCF Residents Keep Abreast of Fire News
