Firefighters held another informational briefing about the Apple fire Friday evening in Morongo Valley, drawing a crowd of nearly 300 people, including representatives from the County Fire Department, CalFire, the County Sheriff’s Department, the Bureau of Land Management, and the US Forest Service to name a few. During the briefing, Operations Section Chief Pat Russel gave an overview of the current containment of the fire, saying that fire crews were successfully able to hold the fire in Millard Canyon approximately 10 miles away from Morongo Valley through coordinated firing operations. With efforts to contain the fire proving successful, Chief Russel was optimistic about fully containing the fire.
“Very Successful day today, very successful day tomorrow. The fire is looking much better and it’s sitting right where we want it with where the fire was when we got here.”
Morongo Valley, Pioneertown and Rimrock residents will remain under the current evacuation warning until further notice. CalFire Riverside unit Chief Todd Hopkins said this is out of an abundance of caution.
“Even though we are looking really good…we need you to be prepared just in case something were to happen and it [the fire] gets out here in the grasses and starts a run towards your community.”
According to Nickie Johnny of the Incident Management Team 2, the Apple fire is currently the number 1 priority fire in the state of California with more than 2,600 people working to put it out. A link to the full Morongo Valley briefing video is available below.
