Crews battle fire in Tujunga

Right now, let's get straight to it. Live pictures from SkyFox. There is a brush fire that has ignited. This is on Latuna Canyon Road in Tujunga, LAFD and LA County Fire, both responding to this fire. Stu Mendel, he's there up in SkyFox with the very latest massive response. A massive response, and, you know, it is justified. Any fire with these type of winds and that warmer weather, you know they're going to be on it very, very quick. Like you said, this is in the Tujunga area, right off of Latuna Canyon. I'm going to go a little bit wider, very wide, I guess, to show you kind of where this is. That right there is going to be the 210 freeway. So south of the 210 freeway, it's not going to affect that at all. First engines arriving, they had a little bit of an issue trying to find it. Once they did, they really kind of was like, well, whose land is this? That's what they were playing. The fire, you know, I'm not going to be the one to say they're going to get this under control quickly, but they're going to get this under control quickly. They were talking about an acre worth of fire that was burning uphill but in heavy brush. You can see those firefighters out there, the number of them just climbing up those hills. That's some of their wildland response. All the guys on the ground, that's going to be L.A. City Fire Department. In the air, though, they've got L.A. County Fire. You've got the Firehawk we just saw drop a few moments ago. And then, of course, they have some of the L.A. City fire helicopters here as well. That fire, well, with all this response, even if that area would be very windy, and I have to be clear, the fire department, you know, I'm not sure if they were being asked or if they were just passing along information that I'm sure the dispatchers and other folks wanted to hear. Because it's in that little alcove down there, it's not that windy, oddly enough. They actually were saying they were having moderate to light winds. So it actually is, for a place for a brush fire, this probably would have been one of the best spots you could possibly have if there is such a thing as a good spot for a brush fire. The fire department, you've got the hose lines out there. You have a number of trucks and a number of boots on the ground. Helicopters, I counted, we have three. I'm not sure if they've released them already, but you can see those firefighters making that climb up there with those heavy packs they're going to get up there and then they're going to start turning over the dirt and keeping that fire in check right now though no active flames and of course if they do a couple more drops out here we're going to definitely get pictures of that but as far as that fire goes it looks like they pretty much have this one under control thank goodness but it's not my job to say that we're going to wait for LA City Fire Department to make that call? Yes. Well, we are working to get somebody from one of the departments on the line with us just to give us the latest information. But I love the fact, as you pointed out, there's no active flames. And the temperature, I just did a quick check, and it's about 85 degrees. So it's warm. And that red flag warning takes effect today. So glad to hear. And that means the high winds of Santa Ana. But so glad to hear in this canyon on Latuna Canyon Road, very light winds out there, which is perfect for these firefighters. Perfect for the firefighters indeed. And I have to make a correction because I just saw it moments ago. You also have Little Tonga. That's going to be the Forest Service arriving out here as well to give aid. So there are plenty of boots on the ground down there. And of course, L.A. City Fire Department, a number of fire trucks out there. So ample amount of water. I don't know if they're actually picking up from a spigot down there as well and they just uh i just got it from Dylan just passing it along saying that they actually are releasing the aerial assets so that all those uh all those indications are very positive if i was shaking my magic eight ball right now i was going to say is this going to be a big fire i would probably get the doubtful uh so right now i'm going to say that they are getting a handle on it you can see a little bit of that smoke and it is definitely moving it isn't going straight up But the fire, the captain that was making the initial calls that we were listening to on the scanner was very clear at twice saying that very light winds where this fire was. You just took me back to my childhood with the eight ball because we have no active flames. Not trying to make light of this in any way, but it just took me back to outlook good or yes, definitely. Outlook good. Right. Right. Signs pointing yes. Yeah, and it's funny because we just mentioned about the light winds, but then all of a sudden it's like you can see it just kind of just kicking up a little bit. And even with that little bit of fire, a little bit of wind, I saw some flames pop up underneath that tree right there. But the number of firefighters that they have here and resources, not just firefighters, but they've got trucks, they've got lines that are out here already, and they've got a lot going on down there. So they're definitely going to keep this one in check. They don't want to see anything. But this kind of gives you an idea also about the readiness for the L.A. City fire, L.A. County, and all the fire services that we have out there, forest service out there. They are going to jump on this as quickly as they can and really, and not that they don't on other fires, but, boy, they're going to make that extra effort and actually bring out more people on the initial calls just to make sure that these fires do not spring up or if they spring up, they just spring and that's it. Right. Put them out. OK, very good. I'm going to lower your audio. Can we keep with your shot? I'm only doing this because I'm going to bring into this conversation. L.A. F.D. Public Information Officer Lindsay Lance. She's going to join us right now for the latest information, Stu. So sit tight while we get some new information from her. Lindsay, thank you so much for being with us right now. We're looking at these live pictures of the Tujunga Brush Fire on La Tuna Canyon Road. What can you tell us about this firefight? How concerned should we be? Hi, Marla. You know, like you were saying, we have an incredible amount of resources that we've pushed out there. L.A. County Fire has also dispatched a full brush assignment. Angeles National Forest are also helping. um so right now um you know with the winds the red flag um weather that we're in right now um it's always going to be a wait and see um but certainly uh we have a lot of resources out there the winds like you said are fairly light right now um less than 10 miles an hour estimated around five uh we do have heavy brush which is always a concern you know when we're looking at last year fuels like grasses that will will burn and sort of stop um that's always a better situation than these dense um pockets of brush that haven't burned in a while so um that's a consideration also the topography out in this area is a consideration fire is always going to burn uphill so um we have an eye out for all of that currently we don't have any structures identified It is threatened. And we did get water on this very quickly. So the outlook is good. But of course, we don't like to make any calls until the incident command says that we've got it contained. OK, very good. So for those just hopping on, you're listening to Lindsay Lance. She's the L.A.F.D. public service officer. We're so grateful she's taking the time out to get us up to speed on this. is the Tujunga fire on Latuna Canyon Road. No active flames from what we're seeing right now. We saw a little bit of flames just a second ago, but I think those have been put out. No homes threatened. That's another important headline that we communicate, of course. And then our Stu Mandel up in Skybox, he was just reporting. Can you confirm that the aerial assets that were on this fire have been released? Another sign that this is going well in the firefight? Right. I do not have confirmation that our air assets have been released. That may be true for some of the L.A. County assets. I cannot speak to them. But we currently are going to keep that aerial reconnaissance in on our side out there. And no, ours have not been released as of right now. OK. Important to make that distinction. So L.A. County Fire is also out there. This is L.A.F.D., the city department whom we're talking to.