L.A. Wind Fans Occidental College Fire as Students Evactuated: Power Outages Reported Across Region
Updated at the bottom with the fire out. First posted at 1:24 a.m.
Occidental College
Among the wind-related calamitous happenings overnight, including trees into homes and power outages far-and-wide, was a grass fire on and around the Eagle Rock campus of Occidental College, President Obama's alma mater.
You gotta think last night was a good night to rid the L.A. City Hall lawn of occupiers too, given that Mother Nature's up-to 100-miles-per-hour gusts might have just blown the demonstrators off the face of the earth anyway.
The Occidental blaze was reported some time before ...
... 12:17 a.m. at 1921 Campus Rd., reported the L.A. Fire Department's Brian Humphrey. That's near campus and the Yosimite Recreation Center and park. An hour later, Humphrey said the blaze continued, fueled by "strong/erratic" winds.
The blaze failed to reach "greater alarm" status, but the LAFD described it as a "a stubborn wind-driven fire" nonetheless.
Twitter user Kevin Coleman posted this video.
TV director and editor Matt Barber @barbermatt posted this video of the blaze, which he noted via Twitter shows "transformers arcing in the distance."
The fire quickly spread to two acres and prompted first responders, in this case the LAPD, to start evacuating people, Humphrey said: The LAFD was sent in the troops, including helicopter crews, to battle the blaze.
Twitter users indicated students were being evacuated to the campus gym. A few tweets also noted that the campus was without power.
Karol Franks tweeted, "Daughter just evacuated from dorm to the gym at Occidental College - fire on or near campus in Eagle Rock."
Meanwhile, in other wind-related news, power went out at LAX for one hour starting at 7 p.m. last night, causing flight diversions and delays, according to City News Service.
@mssiimplyme Christmas Tree down at the Americana at Brand mall in Glendale.
There were outages reported in the lower Westside, from Venice to Del Rey, Culver City to Cheviot Hills, Playa Del Rey to Westchester. Outages were also reported in Elysian Park, Silver Lake / Los Feliz and other communities across L.A.
Trees on cars and into houses? You know it.
Stay safe.
[Update at 2:22 a.m.]: The LAFD's Humphrey says the fire's out. He states that it was caused by downed power lines.
About 40 firefighters battled the blaze for 1 hour, 45 minutes, he said. Winds were clocked at up to 80 miles per hour.
Only two acres or less burned. No structures were sparked.
Humphrey said evacuations were ultimately "unneeded."
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com/@LAWeeklyNews]
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