Dang! It was a close one, about 1 mile from my property.
We lost the bridge at Aliso Canyon, one of my favorite roads up to The Crest. Thank gosh it appears the fire was out this morning as it was headed to the Angeles Forest last night.
Kudos to the air bomers, those guys are awesome accurate and saved everyone's arse. The ground crews are bloody heros too.
We had friends and animals evacuated right across the valley...we also had our trailer hooked and ready.
I had a ringside seat from my front porch...
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The Crown Fire burned out of control across more than 8,000 acres after erupting Tuesday, even as California firefighters gained the upper hand on two other large wildfires. It destroyed a mobile home, an abandoned house and a bridge, county fire Inspector Mike McCormick said.
No injuries were reported.
Winds gusting up to 25 mph pushed flames past ranch homes in Acton but the blaze crept overnight toward houses in the Little Rock, Bell Springs and Juniper Hills areas, he said.
"See all the smoke? My home is right up there," said Cristal Herron, 42, who fled her home Tuesday and waited nervously with her 13-year-old daughter.
Three Angeles National Forest roads were closed indefinitely, including a popular commuter route from the growing Antelope Valley to Los Angeles.
Temperatures reaching into high 90s and brush left dry after years of drought helped fuel a series of Southern California fires in the past week. Threatened communities have so far avoided the large-scale losses of homes that occurred in the region's wildfires last fall but officials warned that the fire season is young.
"A lot of us are looking at each other and saying 'Wait a minute, it's mid-July and this is happening,"' Angeles National Forest spokesman Stanton Florea said. "The multiple large fires with this behavior, we usually only see after Aug. 1, and mostly in October when the Santa Ana winds are blowing."
About 1500 firefighters were on the lines for the Crown Fire, which burned through grass, brush and pinon, juniper and Joshua trees. It was headed deeper into national forest lands full of densely packed, dead conifers.