Sand fire to be declared local emergency for L.A. County

3-D map Sand fire
3-D Map of the Sand Fire, looking east. It shows heat detected by a satellite. The red dots are the most current, detected at 2:01 p.m. PDT July 25, 2016.

(Updated 12:34 p.m. MDT, July 26, 2016)

Officials in Los Angeles have identified the body of Robert Bresnick, 67, who was found dead Saturday in a neighborhood burned by the Sand fire. 

The fire has also destroyed at least 18 homes. Many of the thousands of residents who were forced to evacuate were allowed to return home Monday night. 

Bresnick had refused to evacuate, local media outlets reported. 

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(Updated at 9:30 p.m. MDT, July 25, 2016)

The Sand fire continued to rage outside of Los Angeles on Monday, and while firefighters still struggled to contain it, thousands of evacuation residents were allowed to return home.

(Maps of evacuation zones and lists of neighborhoods can be found here.)

On Tuesday the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to declare the Sand fire — which has destroyed 18 homes and possibly killed one person — a local emergency, a declaration that usually paves the way for grant funding to help communities recover after natural disasters.


Near the city of Santa Clarita, the fire grew by more than 10,000 acres on Sunday, according to the incident management team’s Monday-morning updates. By Monday night the fire spanned more than 35,000 acres and remained only 10 percent contained.

map Sand Fire
Map showing heat detected on the Sand Fire by a satellite. The red dots are the most current, detected at 2:01 p.m. PDT July 25, 2016. At that time the fire was actively spreading on the east side, as well as on the west side, east of Santa Clarita and Highway 14.
Here are some updated stats on resources:

  • 3,379 firefighters are engaged on the Sand Fire,
  • Resources: 435 engines, 54 hand crews, 26 helicopters, 22 dozers and 17 water tenders.

On Sunday, aircraft were briefly kept from the skies over the Sand fire when a personal drone was spotted in the area. While aircraft were only out of commission for 30 minutes (according to local media reports), this was the second time in a week that aircraft were downed because a drone. A similar incident in Montana occurred on the same day.

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