SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY, Calif. - As the Gifford Fire stretches into a second week, the most intense portion of the massive blaze is taking place in South San Luis Obispo County, near the rural community of Huasna.
As of Friday afternoon, the fire has burned close to 105,000 acres in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties since starting on Aug. 1 along Highway 166 east of Santa Maria.
"Basically the fire is spreading more north than it is south," said Rich Eagan, California Incident Management Team Five Public Information Officer. "The the south end has pretty much stayed where it's at for a little bit of time, so there's not a heavy emphasis on the south side. The main focus is on the north side of this fire."
Eagan pointed out a wind event during overnight hours earlier in the week has really pushed the fire deep into backcountry of the county, which is providing firefighters with limited options to quickly suppress the flames.
"The difficulties that they're having is the terrain," said Eagan. "Not a lot of it is accessible by foot, so you have to rely on aircraft and other means to suppress the fire. Also, it takes a while for the crews to even get out to that location. It could take anywhere from three to four hours just to get to the location that they need to go."
All week long, the Gifford Fire has been slowly moving north and is now within a short distance of the Huasna Valley, home to a few hundred residents who live mostly on large properties in the sparsely populated rural community.
"It's been interesting," said Huasna resident Andy Zepeda. "It's been crazy to watch. I mean, with all the glowing nights and whatnot. As it gets a little closer, it's a little nerve wracking to know that that one can shift at any point in time and, you know, we could lose this valley."
While the fire is threatening the town, Zepeda also pointed out how the tight-knit community has rallied around each other during this time of crisis.
"To see all the community come together and check on each other, make sure everybody's safe, it's been awesome," said Zepeda. "To watch everybody come together and get all the livestock out of here. I've watched a couple of these guys come in and out of the canyon multiple times, and you know, all the other neighbors and ranchers giving up their properties for cattle or horses or whatever it may be."
A primary objective for firefighters on Friday was to try and keep the fire out of the Garcia Wilderness, a 14,000 acre area located within the Los Padres National Forest.
"There is no fire history recorded in that area," said Eagan. "In other words, it's never been on fire. Normally when you go to campaign fires, like this one, there's always history that you can rely on and look back historical data to help your tactics and strategy to suppress the incident, but there is no recorded history in that area. The problem you have is with the drought that we've had in California, you've got trees that are dead and are infested with the bark beetle that ignite instantly, and the flame lengths that those create could be 100 feet high. When you have any kind of a wind event, it's going to be very drastic, and so hopefully the winds won't be anything to where we need to be concerned with and we can continue on this fight."
In an effort to improve the firefighting operation in San Luis Obispo County, a second incident command post has been set up, joining the first camp that opened at the Santa Maria Elks Event Center soon after the fire began.
"Basically in 36 hours, they set up camp here to hold about a thousand people and the idea was to have quicker access," said Eagan. "For travel time, it's about 45 minutes to an hour to the other camp, so if you had equipment that you had to run down there, it could take you a couple of hours just to get equipment to where you need it."
Looking ahead, Eagan, like many others, is hoping Mother Nature will cooperate with the firefighting operations, and will provide assistance in helping crews get the upper hand on what has become the largest wildfire this year in California.
"Hopefully, the winds do not pick up, and we're just going to continue fighting this thing till we get it out," said Eegan. "It's going to be a tough fight, and it's not going to happen soon unfortunately, but I'm fairly confident the will by next week this time it will be a different story."
Most intense portion of Gifford Fire now burning in San Luis Obispo County near Huasna News Channel 3-12.
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