Evacuees hope for more information on Pier Fire at first community meeting

Fresno, Calif. (KFSN) -- Thursday morning, crews from Riverside cleared brush around a power pole, in the event fire was to make a run up the slope towards Highway 190.

But besides hand crews, a handful of helicopters are fighting the Pier Fire, some picking up water from the Tule River.

The U.S. Forest Service says the fire was caused by a human but is still under investigation.

Call records from the California Highway Patrol point to a burned vehicle on the side of a cliff as the possible cause of a fire that broke out in the Tule River Canyon on Tuesday morning.

"(The fire is) kind of moving in multiple directions at one time," said U.S. Forest Service Fire Information Officer Denise Alonzo. "That's why we have so many fire personnel scattered around in all the communities just in anticipation of direction that it may go."

More than half a dozen communities are still under mandatory evacuation orders.

John Moore woke up to that order in Sequoia Crest early Tuesday morning.

He lives there with his two Chows Chows.

"I was gone in 15 minutes," Moore said. "I grabbed those girls, I took what I wore--I was gone."

Moore has stayed in a Motel 6 the last two nights.

His mother, who lives in nearby Camp Nelson, will be staying with family in Bakersfield.

"It's a bummer," Moore said. "(It's only been) a couple of days, you know? And I can imagine we may be into this until next Wednesday...so it's tough."

If he had to do it over again, Moore says he would have stayed in Sequoia Crest.

But he doesn't regret his decision to evacuate, and hopes to learn more about the fire, and its proximity to his home at Thursday night's community meeting.

"I have the option to go south to Bakersfield, to family as well," Moore said. "But I just kinda want to stay close to this action and see what's going to happen here."