LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Latest on wildfires in the West:
11:45 a.m.
Officials say a Los Angeles fire that destroyed four homes and threatened hillside neighborhoods is no longer burning actively.
Still, Fire Department Chief Ralph Terrazas said Monday that wind conditions could reignite the blaze, so fire officials were not reducing the number of firefighters at the scene.
A sudden gusty series of rainstorms allowed officials Sunday to call off evacuations for Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale and allow all of the 1,400 people who had fled to return to their homes.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called the fire the largest in the city’s history and had declared a local emergency. The fire has burned nearly 11 square miles (28 kilometers) and was 30 percent contained.
Fire officials had initially said three homes were destroyed but upped that number Monday.
10:05 a.m.
Officials say winds from a thunderstorm pushed a blaze near Yosemite National Park farther into a grove of 2,700-year-old giant sequoias.
Fire information officer Anne Grandy said Monday that crews don’t know yet whether the 15-square-mile (39 kilometer) fire has damaged any trees in Nelder Grove outside the park. She says giant sequoias are resilient and can withstand low intensity fires.
A thunderstorm over the blaze on Sunday pushed it out about a mile (1.6 kilometers) in a span of two hours. The fire is partially contained and has forced the evacuation of a small town.
The Nelder Grove holds more than 100 giant sequoias, including one of the world’s largest, the 24-story-high Bull Buck sequoia.
___
10:15 p.m.
Wildfires forced thousands to flee their homes across the U.S. West during a sweltering, smoke-shrouded holiday weekend of record heat.
The fires Sunday caused evacuations in Glacier National Park in Montana and many other parts of the West; compelled crews to rescue about 140 hikers who had spent the night in the woods after fire broke out along the popular Columbia River Gorge Trail in Oregon; and led firefighters to step up efforts to protect a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoia encroached by flames near Yosemite National Park in California.
A sudden gusty series of rainstorms allowed Los Angeles, however, to cancel evacuation orders for a wildfire that the mayor called the largest in the city’s history and sent beach umbrellas and toy shovels bouncing down Southern California beaches late Sunday.
