Firefighters on Friday evening were gaining the upper hand on a brush fire burning in southwest Riverside County that prompted hundreds of evacuations in the La Cresta community of the Santa Ana Mountains.
The Wildomar Fire grew from 350 acres Thursday to 700 acres Friday morning, the Cleveland National Forest stated in a tweet just after 8 a.m.
The blaze grew to 850 acres by Friday night, but containment increased substantially to 50 percent, according to the Orange County Fire Authority.
Evacuation orders affecting some 200 residences were lifted, the agency tweeted shortly before 7:15 p.m. None of the orders remained in effect.
All evacuation warnings had also been lifted earlier in the day, about 2 p.m. Friday.
No structures have been damaged, a spokeswoman for CalFire told KTLA Friday.
The Murrieta Valley and Lake Elsinore unified school district announced that all schools would be open Friday, but Murrieta Valley stated that bus transportation would be impacted.
The fire started about 12:30 p.m. Thursday in the Wildomar Off-Highway Vehicle area in the Cleveland National Forest when a man crashed his motorcycle into a tree, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The 18-year-old rider tried unsuccessfully to extinguish the blaze before running about two miles to his truck and then calling authorities.
For information on the fire, locals should call the Cleveland National Forest’s Trabuco Ranger District at 951-736-1811.
