Riverbottom fire burned 85 acres in Imperial County
News 11's Vanessa Gongora spoke with the Fire Chief on how the fire was contained.
EL CENTRO, Calif. (KYMA, KECY) - The riverbottom fire fanned by the heavy winds in El Centro spread from 50 acres to about 85 acres.
The fire started Monday afternoon and the active burning stopped at 6 AM Tuesday morning.
The fire was a three-mile stretch from Lyons Road to Schaniel Road.
Imperial County firefighters requested extra personnel to help put out the fire. El Centro, Westmoreland and Holtville departments, as well as the Naval Air Facility, assisted Imperial County in containing and fighting the blaze.
All mutual aid units were released Monday night at approximately midnight and the last engines were released around 2:00 AM Tuesday morning.
Only one unit and the Imperial County Fire Battalion Chief, Christian Guzman, stayed to watch the fire throughout the night.
Tuesday morning, the fire was still monitored by one of the crews.
Firefighters had to standby to wait for the fire to reach terrain that was accessible.
The firefighters finally found an area where they could access the fire 6 a.m. Tuesday morning and changed from a defensive approach to the offensive.
Chief Guzman had set a game plan.
"The fire reached the point where the terrain was accessible so we attempted to make an attack on the north end of the fire. At that time, due to the high winds, it jumped our lines and the fire continued burning until it hit Schaniel Road on the north end. On the south end of the fire we just monitored it and continued to let it burn until it reached Lyons Road," Guzman said.
Guzman said when the fire finally reached the road, that's where they extinguished it, mopped it up and strengthened the fire line.
Firefighters stayed on the scene monitoring the smoldering fires inside the burned area due to the winds.
The main concern was that the fire did not reach the dairy farm.
There was an engine assigned to the dairy farm that was patrolling and keeping an eye out for any embers that might have reached that far.
The only damage was to the vegetation. There were no other exposures and still unknown as to how the fire started.
All crews were released at 10 p.m. Tuesday evening.
