USA: Maria fire burns more than 9,000 acres; focus turns to Edison power line
By Mark Puente, Hannah Fry, Rong-Gong Lin II, and Alex Wigglesworth
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The Maria fire broke out atop South Mountain, just south of Santa Paula, about 6:14 p.m. Thursday and quickly burned toward the small agricultural towns of Somis and Saticoy. By mid-morning Friday, the blaze — influenced by what fire officials called “battling winds” — changed direction, sending flames down the other side of the mountain toward neighborhoods in Santa Paula.
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The cause was unknown. But Southern California Edison told regulators Friday that it had re-energized a 16,000-volt power line 13 minutes before the fire broke out. Edison had earlier turned off the line due to heavy winds.
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Roughly 2,300 structures are threatened, and 8,000 people have been evacuated. Mandatory evacuations remain in place for a swath of homes south of South Mountain Road, east of West Los Angeles Avenue, west of Balcom Canyon Road and north of the 118 Freeway. New mandatory evacuations have been ordered for the area south of the 126 Freeway, east of Campanula Avenue, west of South 12th Street/South Mountain Road and north of the Santa Clara River.
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As the gusts began to pick up Friday morning, dozens of fire vehicles staged around homes along the rolling hillsides of West La Loma Avenue prepared to protect the properties from possible flare-ups. Agricultural employees, wearing masks, worked nearby in citrus groves.
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