fire line

Firefighters were protecting homes at the fire line, Nausha said, but embers being carried by 50-mph winds and 80-mph gusts were already lighting homes on fire as far as a mile away from the flames, behind firefighters.

‘One structure catches fire … and it throws embers downwind to the next structure, and the sequence is pretty much unstoppable. There’s just no good way to build fire line in an urban environment.’

In some cases, they were lining up, waiting to be dispatched out to a hot spot or fire line, Hudson said.

I answered texts from friends and family with optimism, while bouncing from all the maps to social media and Next Door, hoping to get some notion of the actual fire line to the west of the main blaze only to find conflicting reports.

Most of his labor was a little farther from the fire line, he stressed.