Orange County's Silverado Fire expands to 11,000 acres

Yesterday the wildfire known as the Silverado Fire in Orange County, California expanded from a few acres early in the morning to about 4,000 acres as of 1 pm local time. Since then the fire has continued to grow and has now consumed more than 11,000 acres. Here’s what the line of flame looked like last night:

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One of my close friends lives less than a mile from the evacuation zone and told me all he heard all day yesterday was the sirens of emergency vehicles. This morning the Orange County Fire Authority tweeted out the updated totals for the Silverado Fire:

That tweets puts the number of people being evacuated at 76,000 (up from 60,000 yesterday) but news reports put the number at 90,000.

Soon after it started, the Silverado prompted orders by officials for residents of Orchard Hills to leave their homes. By the end of the day more than 90,000 residents in Irvine and more in Lake Forest were under evacuation orders.

On Tuesday morning, authorities said, Silverado, Modjeska and Trabuco canyons along Live Oak Canyon Road were under evacuation warnings. Part of Mission Viejo was also warned that residents there may need to evacuate.

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Two firefighters were gravely injured yesterday while fighting the fire, suffering severe burns. Their names have not been released yet but their ages are 26 and 31:

In addition to the Silverado Fire, there is a second fire expanding just north in Yorba Linda. It’s been dubbed the Blue Ridge Fire. It has already consumed 8,000 acres:

A fast-moving vegetation fire between Riverside and Orange counties has entered its second day and gobbled up 8,000 acres so far as it threatens homes in Yorba Linda, fire officials said Tuesday morning, Oct. 27.

So far, firefighters had not contained any of the Blue Ridge fire, which has damaged 10 homes in Yorba Linda, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.

Some images and video of the Blue Ridge Fire starting yesterday:

Incredible video of a fire retardant drop from a large plane:

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One of the homes burned by the fire yesterday had a Trump 2020 banner out front. Naturally there are horrible people responding to this on Twitter just as you would expect them to.

The firefighters kept working all night:

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Here’s a local news report from this morning showing the strength of the winds driving the flames:

And they’re still at it today:

There could be updates to this post throughout the day. Hopefully we’ll get some news on the two firefighters in the hospital.

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John Stossel 8:30 AM | December 22, 2024
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