Fire Watch

LAKE VIEW TERRACE All evacuation orders were lifted Wednesday for residents displaced by the 4-day-old Marek Fire in the Lake View Terrace area, as firefighters continued to gain ground on the 4,824-acre fire.

The fire was 92 percent contained by Wednesday night, Los Angeles County fire Inspector Ron Haralson said. One hundred percent containment was expected by Thursday.

The fire has scorched 4,824 acres in Little Tujunga and Kagel canyons and Lake View Terrace in an area stretching southward from the Angeles National Forest.

One home in the Dexter Park area was destroyed, along with 38 mobile homes in Valley View Estates and five outbuildings, according to the Forest Service.

Mandatory evacuations were issued in Lopez Canyon, Kagel Canyon and Little Tujunga Canyon, affecting 1,200 people in about 450 homes, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday.

The evacuation order was lifted for all but Lopez Canyon by 9 a.m. Tuesday, county fire Inspector Ron Haralson said. No livestock was allowed back in yet and residents of Kagel Canyon would be allowed back in only with identification.

All onramps and offramps were also reopened along the Foothill (210) Freeway by Tuesday morning. The ramps had been closed as a precaution during the height of the fire.

The overnight winds thankfully did not produce the gusty winds, forecast up to 70 mph, Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Mark Savage said.

"So far, so good, but we're not done yet," he said around 5:30 a.m., adding that fire crews quickly attacked overnight flareups, keeping homes safe from the flames.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Curt Kaplan said a resurgence of strong winds was expected Tuesday in the mountains and valleys of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, but gusts would not be as fierce.

As of Tuesday morning, two deaths had been attributed to the Sesnon and Marek fires. One of the fatalities was an unidentified homeless man found dead in a makeshift shelter, along with his dog, as a result of the Marek Fire. Flames consumed his makeshift wood-and-cardboard shelter near Paxton Street and Foothill Boulevard, near the interchange of the Foothill (210) Freeway and the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway. His body was so badly burned it will not be easy to identify, said Assistant Coroner Chief Ed Winter.

The other was a person -- also not immediately identified -- killed in a fiery head-on collision on the Ronald Reagan (118) Freeway just east of DeSoto Avenue, on a stretch of the freeway clogged by thick black smoke from the Sesnon fire.

Winter said that person -- the gender of whom still was not known -- apparently got confused in heavy smoke from the fire and was going the wrong way on the freeway.

Roughly 1,300 firefighters from several fire departments in the Southland and elsewhere in California were assigned to fight the Marek Fire, with additional personnel and equipment being requested as needed, the Forest Service reported.

San Fernando High School is being used as an American Red Cross refugee center along with Sylmar High School, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Both high schools will continue to operate normally, according to the LAUSD.

The fire, which broke out around 2 a.m. Sunday near a shooting range in Little Tujunga Canyon in the Angeles National Forest, remained under investigation, but arson investigators told reporters they found something suspicious near the ignition point. Details of their findings were not immediately released.

Villaraigosa said those looking for updated information on evacuations, road closures and assistance could call the LAFD at (800) 439-2909 or the L.A. County Fire Department at (323) 881-2413.

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