BISHOP (AP) – Firefighters stopped the forward spread of a wildfire tearing through a remote area of eastern California, but evacuation orders for residents of hundreds of homes remained in place, officials said.
The Silver Fire erupted on Sunday afternoon along Route 6 in Inyo County, about eight kilometres northeast of Bishop in the Owens Valley, near the Nevada border.
The cause was under investigation. It had churned through about 6.5 square kilometres of grass and brush, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said in a post on the social platform X. It was 47 per cent contained.
Residents of about 800 homes near the tiny communities of Laws, Chalfant and White Mountain Estates had been ordered evacuated after the fire broke out. Officials didn’t provide an update on how many people were still under those orders.
Crews were expected to stay overnight to keep an eye on hotspots and work on containment. The potential 104 kph gusts had limited flights by water-dropping helicopters and kept air tankers grounded, Cal Fire spokesperson Chloe Castillo said.
“The winds are very erratic,” she said. “One minute they’re pushing north, the next they’re going east.”
Cal Fire said the blaze was threatening land belonging to the Bishop Paiute Tribe as well as habitats for endangered species including the Owens pupfish and desert bighorn sheep.
Inyo County has received very little recent precipitation and is abnormally dry, with some areas experiencing extreme drought. Similarly, most of Southern California is in moderate to extreme drought, according to the United States Drought Monitor.
