Park Hill Fire destroyed 16 structures, 9 vehicles

June 22, 2015

The 1,800 acres Park Hill Fire destroyed two homes, four mobile homes, two RVs used as primary residence, 10 outbuildings and seven vehicles including one boat and trailer. PG&E continues to repair burned poles and lines.

Current cost estimate for the fire is 2.7 million. The cause of the fire was carbon buildup from an unknown vehicle exhaust system. One civilian was injured.

At this time, only residents are permitted in the fire area. San Luis Obispo County Sheriff deputies and California Highway Patrol will continue to patrol the area and firefighters will remain at the fire until full containment and control.

“Today the firefighters made significant progress in building line and mopping-up the fire. We will be demobilizing many resources tomorrow, making them available for other fires,” said Chief Crawford, incident commander.

park hills fire 5


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Excellent work by the fire fighting crews. This fire could have exploded and burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed many other properties, and put many more people in danger. This fire season will be extraordinarily dangerous and we will be depending on these dedicated people like never before.


Okay, well homes were destroyed and a person was injured. What can the public do to prevent a recurrence of this event? Cause AND corrective actions, please.


Simple,

A clear defensible space of 100 feet around all structures, clean the leaves and pine needles off of roof and decks.

And maintain the exhaust systems on your vehicles.


Bravo all firefighters and LEO… This could have exploded into son of 58 or Las Pilitas fires which burned tremendous acreage and cost tens of millions to fight.

Same prevention methods would have prevented those fires as well, if only citizens would comply…


Chief Crawford IC? I remember when he was just a little crawdad.


No disparagement intended.


Usually a prevention officer does forensic investigation based on first hand info from onsite fire fighters. All firefighters are trained to be aware of the area at the point of origin and to preserve the evidence if any is found.

This was probably a vehicle driving north east on Las Pilitas with a faulty catalytic converter spewing super heated particles of the precious metals inside the unit.

Just my two cents based on two decades of firefighting…


I understand how they might blame an unknown vehicle exhaust system, but is that because evidence can be found or because nothing else fits the possible cause of the fire. Just curious. Do they know where the fire started?