Winds hamper Harrison Fire cleanup

Dark, billowing flames shot more than 75 feet in the air as the Harrison fire devoured 80 acres of brush and tamarisk trees near Avenue 66 in Thermal.

“I saw all the smoke and I was like what the hell and then I saw family posting on Snapchat about the fire,” said Alex Castro, who lives just a few hundred yard from where the fire started.

Castro’s family was told to evacuate their homes, but were able to return after 6 p.m.

“It is dangerous because we have a lot of kids here. It’s a fire, it’s a big fire,” Castro said.

“They sent us to the front and police were knocking on doors,” said Angelica Moreno-Castro. “It was scary because we had to leave.”

The dry terrain created conditions ripe for the fire to grow, and to make those conditions worse, crews battled triple digit heat that sent two firefighters to the hospital. Both had non life-threatening injuries.

“It gets up into the 120s and that type of toll is immense as they fight fire,” said Lucas Spelman, fire captain for Cal Fire.

As the sun set, concerns turned to the intensifying winds. Hand crews worked to create a containment line using a bulldozer, as flames swallowed the dry brush in its path.

“This is where we can get aggressive but with the wind behind us we have new concerns,” Spelman said. “We never wanna let our guard down when there’s wind like this.”