As the Hughes fire swells, some residents gather near the flames to witness the spectacle
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As the sun began to set over Castaic Lake on Wednesday, the hills to the north and east were engulfed in flames, casting an eerie orange glow across the valley below.
The Hughes fire ignited earlier in the day north of Castaic and by evening had grown to more than 9,000 acres, forcing the evacuation of about 31,000 people.
On Lake Hughes Road, wooden piles supporting power lines had burned and snapped, spreading high-voltage wires like snakes across the pavement.
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Overhead, a pair of firefighting helicopters circled in constant, hurried laps between the lake and the burning hillsides. It took them only about a minute to fill their water tanks with hoses as they hovered above the surface, and then only a couple of more minutes to drop their loads on the flames and return for more.
South of the lake, a large, empty field burned as dozens of firetrucks fought the remaining embers. Across Ridge Route Road, where a string of apartment buildings stood a stone’s throw from the flames, residents watched the spectacle like fans at a sporting event — phones held aloft, sharing the shocking images with friends and family via livestreaming video.
Antonio Morataya had been at work about 15 minutes away when he heard that the field next to his apartment building was burning.
He raced home, tossed his passport and whatever other documents he could grab into his car and then stepped outside to watch what turned into an hours-long battle between firefighters and the flames.
A few blocks east of Interstate 5, with nothing burning between him and the freeway, he had a decent escape route if things went bad — assuming the roads didn’t get snarled with traffic.
He joked about feeling “safe” because there is a tiny county firehouse half a block away, “but the fire was even closer!”
Rob Mower had just raced home through the flames and police roadblocks to make sure his house wasn’t on fire. Considering that, he looked pretty relaxed.
He was dressed head to toe in motorcycle safety gear and leaning against his powerful off-road bike — an excellent means of escape, especially if the roads are jammed with traffic.
His house was fine, he said, as helicopters thumped overhead and a long convoy of emergency vehicles raced by, sirens blaring. He has lived in Castaic for 22 years, he said, and has had fires burn right up to his backyard.
“I think we’re more prepared than most, in this area,” he said, “because we are right up against the hills and it does burn frequently.”
As another half a dozen or so Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department cruisers rolled by, Mower credited them and the firefighters for swarming the town so quickly. It was clear L.A. County had muscle available to fight these things, he said. For Mower, that put into perspective how bad weather conditions must have been during the Palisades and Eaton fires to lose so many houses and lives.
“It must have been, just, unmanageable,” he said. “That’s unfortunate, but that’s just the nature of the beast sometimes.”
Despite the enormous flames still burning in the hills above as Mower spoke Wednesday afternoon, there had been no reports of lost homes or lives in Castaic.
Mower had checked not only his own house but also those of several friends and neighbors, and they were all still unharmed.
“This happens every few years,” he said with a shrug. “It’s just part of living in California.”
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