PORTER RANCH, Calif. — The Saddleridge Fire is now 68 percent contained as of Friday morning, after burning 8,391 acres in the northern San Fernando Valley.
Residents affected by mandatory evacuations due to the Saddleridge Fire in the areas of Sylmar, Granada Hills, and Porter Ranch were allowed to return home over the weekend. All evacuations have been lifted.
The origin of the fire has been located in a 50' by 70' area beneath a high voltage transmission tower.
The brush fire damaged or destroyed more than 30 structures, forcing about 100,000 people from their homes, and creating dangerously unhealthy air quality over a huge chunk of the Southland.
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Ralph Terrazas, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, said more than a dozen structures were destroyed, while the rest suffered varying degrees of damage.
It quickly spread due to wind-blown embers that jumped the Golden State (5) Freeway about 11:20 p.m. Thursday, spreading the flames into Granada Hills and Porter Ranch, according to Margaret Stewart of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
“When they came by to evacuate us or put us on alert, they said pack for five days, so that was kind of alarming,” Dorena Knepper said.
Knepper has lived in Porter Ranch for about 30 years and experienced a mandatory fire evacuation before but not to this degree. She waited at the Shepherd Church since 3 a.m. Friday and spent the day waiting for updates with one of her neighbors.
One person, described only as a man in his 50s, died of a heart attack Friday morning in the Porter Ranch area, according to the LAFD. Terrazas said the man was actually speaking to firefighters when he went into cardiac arrest, and he died at a hospital.
According to reports from the scene, the man had been working to protect his home from the fire.
One firefighter suffered a minor eye injury, according to the LAFD.
The massive fire prompted a mandatory evacuation order for all residents of Porter Ranch north of the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway from Reseda Boulevard to DeSoto Avenue. Residents of Granada Hills from Balboa Boulevard and north of Sesnon Boulevard to the Ventura County border were under a mandatory evacuation order. Mandatory evacuations were also issued for the Oakridge Estates community north of the Foothill Freeway in Sylmar.
The evacuation orders affected roughly 23,000 homes -- equating to about 100,000 people, authorities said.
"If individuals refuse to leave, they'll be admonished, we'll body-worn camera record them, we will get their next of kin and their information, and they'll be left there over our objections,'' Moore told reporters Friday evening.
Roughly 1,000 firefighters from LAFD, Los Angeles County Fire Department, and Angeles National Forest were on the ground battling the flames, aided by water-dropping helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropping fire retardant.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who cut short a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, due to the fire, and county Board of Supervisors chair Janice Hahn both signed local emergency declarations, and by late afternoon, Gov. Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles and Riverside counties. The declarations free up local and state resources to aid in the firefighting effort.
There was no immediate word on what sparked the fire, as of Saturday morning.
City News Service contributed to this report.
