Holy fire: Some students return to school as firefighters begin to gain upper hand on blaze
As firefighters begin to slowly gain the upper hand on the Holy fire that has burned in the Cleveland National Forest for a week, some students near the burn area are going back to school.
Menifee Union School District schools will be in session on Monday, Aug. 13, five days after their school year was supposed to begin.
Other affected districts delayed their first days of school until next week: The Lake Elsinore Unified School District will go back on Aug. 20, its school board has decided. The district doesn’t play to change the school year calendar, so winter and spring breaks, and the last day of school, won’t be changed.
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Firefighters were able to save a threatened school in the district, Rice Canyon Elementary, from flames – stopping them just before they reached the campus.
MAP: Where the Holy fire is burning, including evacuations and closures
Meanwhile, schools in the Corona-Norco Unified School District, south of the 91 Freeway and east of Border Avenue in Corona, will also push back the first day of school, until next Monday.
The city of Corona announced a day camp to help working parents of students this week: It runs from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Fees are $110 for residents and $140 for non-residents, with priority for parents of students at fire-affected schools. The camp will be at Circle City Center, 365 N. Main St. in Corona.
Firefighters were able to increase containment slightly overnight to 52 percent, up from 51 percent, according to Cleveland National Forest officials. The charred acreage remained at 22,714.
Firefighters could get a break on Monday with somewhat cooler weather. Temperatures were forecast to dip a bit, into the low 90s for the Lake Elsinore area, according to the National Weather Service.
“The temperatures will be cooler but equally important is the relative humidity, which will be up, helping to slow the fire,” said Thanh Nguyen, public information officer for the Holy fire. “Now crews’ effort today is to actually make sure those lines are holding.”
Full containment of the blaze is expected Aug. 21, Nguyen said.
Full containment is reached when the blaze can no longer jump the perimeter of the fire line, he said. A locked containment line is 100 feet in from the edge of the burn footprint.
He warned, however, that residents may still see smoke coming from the canyon even after full containment is declared.
Authorities have lifted some of the evacuation orders for residents, including one for the Glen Eden Sun Club that was announced at 7 a.m. Monday. It bills itself as a “premier family oriented nudist resort and RV park.” Glen Eden tweeted out that its residents are invited back now, but not others; it hopes to be fully operational by Friday, if not earlier.
Still, a voluntary evacuation was declared Sunday for the neighborhood of Trilogy, an unincorporated area built around a golf course next to Glen Ivy Hot Springs.
#Holyfire Evacuations have been lifted for the Lake Elsinore community of Riverside
— Cleveland NF (@ClevelandNF) August 13, 2018
Evacuations remained in effect in Holy Jim, Trabuco Canyon recreation residence tracts, Blue Jay and Falcon campgrounds, El Cariso Village, Rancho Capistrano and Glen Eden Canyon, authorities said.
Ortega Highway, also known as Highway 74, will remain closed on Monday, according to Cleveland National Forest officials.
Air-quality officials warned that unhealthy conditions remained in some areas of Southern California.