A small brush fire that briefly shut down the northbound Glendale Freeway on Wednesday afternoon occurred concurrently with a larger, 200-acre blaze actively being fought by firefighters in Orange County.
Authorities were dispatched to the Glendale incident, officially named the York fire, near California 2 and Round Top Drive at approximately 4:50 p.m. The fire, initially characterized as a quarter-acre “topography driven fire with no wind,” reportedly expanded to 2 acres, according to Fire Department spokesperson Jamie Stewart.
The California Highway Patrol confirmed that shortly after 5 p.m., the Fire Department requested a temporary closure of all northbound lanes of the State Route 2 to facilitate the transport of a water tanker to combat the York fire. This complete closure lasted approximately three minutes. However, by 6 p.m., two northbound lanes of the Glendale Freeway remained closed, along with the northbound on-ramps at York Boulevard and Colorado Boulevard. No estimated time for reopening had been provided by officials.
Approximately 100 Fire Department personnel and 17 fire engines were engaged in efforts to contain the 2-acre York fire. Officials stated that no structures were threatened by this blaze. By around 6 p.m., the forward progress of the fire had been halted, with crews continuing to work on extinguishing hot spots. No injuries were reported in connection with the Glendale fire.
Meanwhile, in Orange County, a separate incident dubbed the Gibby fire rapidly consumed 216 acres in the vicinity of Rancho Mission Viejo and San Juan Capistrano. This fire ignited near the intersection of Ortega Highway and Gibby Road around 3 p.m., as reported by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The Gibby fire necessitated the closure of eastbound Ortega Highway at Gateway Place and westbound at Grand Avenue in Lake Elsinore, according to the CHP. Residents were issued shelter-in-place orders for several hours. The Orange County Fire Authority announced that the forward progress of the Gibby fire was halted by approximately 7:30 p.m. Ortega Highway between Gateway and Grand remained closed.
