Glendale fire nearly knocked down; Walnut fire out

A 75-acre brush fire in Glendale that threatened homes has nearly been knocked out, while a separate fire in the San Gabriel Valley suburb of Walnut has been doused.

Glendale officials credited the clearing of flammable brush and a decisive airborne attack from water-dropping helicopters as critical in gaining the upper hand on that blaze, which scorched the Chevy Chase Canyon area north of the 134 Freeway.

“We hit it quickly,� Glendale spokesman Tom Lorenz said. The city’s firefighters, Lorenz said, had been preparing and planning for brush fires due to the recent high winds.

In Walnut, a suburb of 30,000 just west of Diamond Bar, Los Angeles County firefighters knocked down a five-acre fire before it reached nearby homes in the 600 block of North Silver Valley Trail.

That fire broke out at 3:50 p.m. and was knocked down about an hour later. “We sent the world,� said fire inspector Quvondo Johnson. “We’ve got approximately 200 firefighters -- air, ground, the whole works. ... We didn’t play.�

In Glendale, no injuries were reported, and no structures were damaged. Five helicopters, 35 engines and five hand crews battled the blaze.

By evening, the haze of white smoke that hung in the hills had largely cleared away, and the headache of getting home was the primary concern, with traffic along Chevy Chase Drive and Verdugo Road jammed.

On Sinclair Avenue, a man frowned from his green Toyota 4Runner, shaking his hand at the police road block in front of him. He shouted out the window: “They won’t let me go home! It’s only a block from here!�

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Glendale: Firefighters gain upper hand on 75-acre brush fire

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Jason Wells and Veronica Rocha contributed to this report.