Firefighters gain ground on 110-acre Union Fire in Riverside County
Crews in Riverside Sunday have managed to get a stranglehold on the Union Fire, preventing it from spreading further.
As of Sunday evening, the fire is still at 110 acres but is at 65-percent containment, according to the Riverside County Fire Department.
As of Saturday night, there were 200 firefighters and 20 engines on the scene, as well as both water-dropping helicopters and planes.
Evacuation orders were issued as the wildfire was threatening dozens of homes, though a little after 10 p.m., those orders were upgraded to an evacuation warning.
"We did have an evacuation order in place for the homes that were adjacent to the river bottom that was burning," Riverside County Fire Department Public Information Officer Tawny Castro told CBSLA. "That has been downgraded to a warning. We do ask that when people start returning to their homes, they use caution. We still have quite a bit of fire equipment out here in the roadways, who are working to put out the hotspots and do mop up. So, just please be careful when you start making your way back into the area. We still have a lot of firefighters out here."
No homes burned and there are no longer any structures threatened by fire.
Reports of the blaze, which was burning in a river bottom near Indian Camp Road and Candle Light Drive, came in at around 3:49 p.m. According to a tweet from Cal Fire Riverside.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for some 2,600 homes south of Limonite Avenue, north of Riverview Drive, east of Avenue Juan Diaz and west of Maverick Lane.
A reception and care center was set up at Patriot High School, located at 4355 Camino Real.
CBSLA spoke to a resident, Raymond Barrientos, in the area who said that he was home when the fire broke out and had been watching and monitoring the situation, hoping that he won't have to evacuate his home.
"I seen that there was, like, huge smoke and then I looked and I seen that there was police officers knocking on the neighbors, like a block down. So, I was like, 'Oh, man, We're going to have to evacuate.' So, then I was like getting my stuff ready, packing all my stuff and we were just sitting and waiting just to see what happened," he said.
Crews are expected to be on the scene for most of the night. The cause of the wildfire was under investigation.
