Crews fight Peak Fire in Azusa

Brush fire burning in the Azusa area. It's grown to roughly 15 acres. According to the crews at the scene, water dropping aircraft are being dispatched to assist in protecting structures north of San Gabriel Canyon Road. This is in the area of Foxtail and Poppy Glen Courts. This is the Peak Fire. And I want to get your thoughts on what you were referring to. And by the way, we're going to be getting a phone call with somebody from L.A. County Fire to pop on to talk about the Peak Fire. As soon as that happens, I'll bring that spokesperson on. But you were and I can ask them about the super scoopers. In the meantime, you think that they were holding the super scoopers? I think they hold them out just to, you know, because the helicopters are going to get priority. The helicopters are going to get in there. They're going to do their drops and then they're going to allow the super scoopers in. They're basically circling right now over the Glendale Eagle Rock area. That's where they were. We're basically right directly over Pasadena right now. So we're still moving out towards San Gabriel Canyon in the Azusa area. So we'll see when we get a little bit closer. This is definitely going to be an L.A. County Fire handle. Like you said, you're going to talk to somebody, a PIO from L.A. County Fire. And the one thing I got to say about the smoke is when you see the white smoke like that or the dark gray, sometimes that means that's water, that's steam, and it's a good sign, especially if you see it on a structure fire. But a lot of times on a brush fire like that, I've had this told to me by many a firefighter, that basically when you see that, it is just completely burned ash. You're seeing whatever the vegetation was completely burned, and it just has turned to ash. And then when you see that darker smoke coming up, that's going to be chaparral or any type of oily type of plant that's burning, and that's one of the reasons why you see those different colors on these brush fires. This one, though, gives you an idea. The first text that we got, the half an acre, the information you got, 15. How quickly did that happen? and i could probably guess by the time we get there it's going to double again okay well uh i do have that public information officer from LA County Fire joining now so i'm going to lower your microphones too and bring up Pauline McGee thank you so much for your time uh we are on our way we have these live pictures of the Peak Fire we're seeing the mountainside and a whole lot of white and gray black smoke billowing what can you tell us about the Peak Fire i just want to know out of the gate are structures threatened no no structures are threatened you know this fire we were uh dispatched this fire 114 uh units respond on scene at 115 and reported uh there is a working brush fire going on they start off at a half an acre and then went from a first alarm to the second alarm just so we can get more resources and get a hold of the fire right now um so there was no report of anyone injured on personnel as well as civilians. Just no structures threatened at this time. Um, and they're just working hard to get control of that fire right now. Okay. Uh, well, that's great news in terms of no structures, no injuries. And the last count we, in terms of acreage, we heard at least 15 acres. Is that accurate? Um, let's see. Um, so far I just have a half acre. I had a half acre and I don't have that update yet. Okay. All right. Very good. We were hearing from crews on the scene and they were reporting at least 15 acres. We're seeing some of the air resources out there. Can you give us a rundown of the resources that you're throwing at this? Yeah, so it is holding at 15 to 20 acres right now. So we have approximately 195 personnel on scene and various resources. I heard your reporter talking about the super scooper. So Quebec 1 and Quebec 2 was dispatched to that incident as well. So, you know, we have a lot of people out there working to get this fire under control. Okay, I'll just reiterate that. 15 to 20 acres, 195 personnel there on the scene. The super scoopers are part of your toolkit today to fight this peak fire as it has been named. The super scoopers, they're able to hold, they're on loan from Canada, they're able to hold anywhere from 1,500 to 1,600 acres, so they're a massively effective resource. We're glad that they're out there. Our reporter in the sky, Stu Mandel, was saying that he wasn't sure if they were being held back at all because of the winds in the area, although they are capable to fly in the windy conditions. Can you speak to any of that? Well, yeah, you know, they're always going to consider the pilot safety, the apparatus, as well as the gusts of wind. So typically with the winds over, you know, around 40, 45, you know, they have to really strategically evaluate and see if it's safe to do so um i don't see that it's holding um right now maybe because the ground personnel could have control okay um but yeah i don't see a report of them on hold okay and then i'm not sure if you're able to see our live picture here but we were just zooming in and we saw some of the flames literally devouring the brush that seem and it's hard to gauge how far but there are some homes that are very close to these flames so now i'm thinking that structures are now threatened i'm not the i'm not the official here but i just want to point this out because we're seeing those flames now on the ground again i only can report what's here in our CAD and i'm not i don't have a visual of it um but if that is again we'll have a team out there doing structure protection to ensure that those homes are safe um i don't see any evacuation orders in place but again if there is structure protection we will have a team over there making sure they protect those homes okay and what are the conditions uh in terms of wind gusts and temperatures out there again i am looking i don't i don't have a visual and we're looking at let me get a second look out here right now i know that they're fighting it was medium to heavy fuels right that they're going up against yeah and and we're seeing we're seeing that that vegetation that is going up in flames and there is i'm not sure if this is the lake i know or man-made reservoir there that you're able to pick up some water uh but we're seeing that happen right now which is great it's a great close resource of course i was just curious if you knew the wind speeds right now in terms of uh how that would hinder this firefight no i do not have that information privy to me at this moment okay no worries and we're seeing a water drop we'd love to see that uh the more that we see that the uh the more relaxed we can be so okay uh anything else you'd like to add pauline please just ask everyone if those who are in areas are in that confined area just make sure you follow the uh the evacuation orders or if there are any any orders out there warnings you can find that out by going to protect.genesis.gov to ensure the evacuation zone and also the prepare wildfire preparedness you can go to ready set to be familiar with ready set go you can go to fire.lacounty.gov okay uh ready set go for more uh say that website one more time at fire.lacounty.gov fire.lacounty.gov i think you'd think i'd have that committed to memory by now there's a lot of websites i have in my head so fire.lacounty.gov on the phone with us right now is pauline mcgee she's the la county fire public information officer appreciate your time thank you so much