The tank at GKN Aerospace, which manufactures cockpit windows and shields for military aircraft, had been heating up after a cooling system valve failed. Officials used drones to read the tank’s temperature from outside the facility while crews deployed an unmanned ground monitoring system and water cannon to spray the tank and keep it cool.

At the height of the emergency, officials feared the tank could rupture or explode, potentially sending a toxic chemical cloud over nearby neighborhoods. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office sent more than 700 personnel to Garden Grove as local and state agencies responded.

The immediate danger eased only after the tank cracked enough to release pressure without triggering a blast. Evacuation orders were lifted by Tuesday night, but the near-disaster has left residents, community advocates and environmental experts demanding answers about what regulators knew before the crisis — and whether California’s oversight system missed warning signs.

The incident has exposed possible gaps across several regulatory programs. Air quality officials had flagged compliance problems at GKN years before the emergency. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office is now investigating whether any laws were broken. Community leaders say residents deserve a clear accounting of what safety measures were in place, how the chemical was being stored and why the situation came so close to catastrophe.

GKN had been working through environmental compliance issues at the same time regulators and local planners were reviewing a proposed expansion of the Garden Grove facility, which would increase production capacity for components used in F-35 military fighter jets.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District has inspected GKN three times in the past decade. For much of that period, the facility was classified as a “minor source” of emissions under the district’s permitting system, a designation that did not require frequent inspections.

Records show that limited oversight may have coincided with years of compliance problems, though regulators have said those violations were not tied to the storage tank that held methyl methacrylate, the chemical involved in the emergency.

In 2020, GKN voluntarily reported certain issues that prompted South Coast air regulators to inspect the site and review company records. The district’s investigation found that violations had occurred as far back as 2017. According to regulatory documents, the plant, located less than a mile from homes and schools, failed to maintain required emissions records, operated new equipment without proper permits and used equipment that did not match the descriptions in its existing permits.

The air district did not issue a formal notice of violation until April 2021. A settlement was not finalized until late 2024, when GKN agreed to pay more than $900,000. The company did not admit liability in the agreement, which resolved 14 alleged violations.

South Coast regulators now consider GKN a “major source” of emissions, a category subject to annual inspections. A district spokesperson said the company has applied for a more comprehensive permit at the direction of regulators.

For residents and community advocates, the timeline has added to frustration.

“That delay and the fact that GKN was allowed to operate with what felt like impunity has meant tens of thousands of Garden Grove residents are now paying the price,” said Tracy La, executive director of VietRISE, a nonprofit that works with Vietnamese and immigrant communities in Orange County.

La said evacuees faced costs for temporary lodging, replacement medications, transportation and other emergency needs after being forced from their homes.

“It is frustrating that everyday people are the ones who continue to bear the consequences when government officials are unwilling to hold powerful and wealthy corporations accountable,” she said.

Garden Grove is part of Little Saigon, one of the largest Vietnamese American communities in the country and home to many immigrants and refugees from the Vietnam War.

For some residents, methyl methacrylate is not an obscure aerospace chemical. It is a workplace hazard they have fought for years to remove from nail salons.

Lisa Fu, who leads the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, said Vietnamese nail salon workers across the state campaigned against the chemical because of its effects on the lungs, skin and eyes. California banned the use of methyl methacrylate in nail salons and cosmetology schools in 2015 after workers raised health concerns.

Now, Fu said, the same chemical was leaking from a tank only a short distance from Little Saigon. She said members of her organization and residents reported nosebleeds, itching and the deaths of pet birds.

Air monitors placed near the plant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the South Coast air district recorded pollution levels within normal ranges. But Fu said the gap between those readings and residents’ experiences has deepened distrust.

“At press conferences, people hear there are no fumes, no vapors, no leaks, no contamination,” Fu said. “They say it is safe. Safe for whom? We believe the community when these stories keep coming in.”

Community advocates are urging Garden Grove officials to close the facility and adopt a moratorium on military manufacturing facilities and expansions in the city.

GKN’s more comprehensive air permit application is pending before the South Coast air district, and the public is expected to have an opportunity to comment. A district spokesperson said the agency had planned to release the permit for public review before the end of the year, though that timeline could change because of the emergency.

The incident has also raised questions about whether California’s chemical safety rules leave residents vulnerable when hazardous substances fall outside the state’s strictest accidental release programs.

Methyl methacrylate is a volatile chemical widely used in plastics manufacturing. Officials feared the GKN tank could fail as the liquid overheated, spilling thousands of gallons of chemical material or triggering an explosion.

Andrew J. Whelton, an environmental engineering professor at Purdue University, compared the pressure buildup to “a soda can left in a car in the middle of summer.”

“The pressure inside the can builds beyond what the metal can withstand,” he said.

When the tank began overheating, it set off a chemical reaction that response crews could not stop. Craig Covey, a division chief with the Orange County Fire Authority, said at a May 22 news conference that the reaction had clogged valves crews needed to inject a neutralizing agent.

Methyl methacrylate is not a regulated chemical under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program or California’s parallel accidental release program, known as CalARP. That means the tank may have been covered only by a lower-level hazardous materials program, limiting the regulatory tools available to oversee its storage.

“If you live there, if you are a neighbor, can you go see what chemicals they have stored on site?” asked Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. “No, you can’t.”

The federal program has not added reactive chemicals to its list of covered substances, despite recommendations from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, which investigates chemical accidents. The Trump administration has proposed eliminating funding for the board after October and rolling back 2024 changes to the Risk Management Program that expanded some chemical safety requirements.

California has a similar gap. The California Environmental Protection Agency confirmed to CalMatters that methyl methacrylate is not regulated under the state’s accidental release program.

Orange County health officials said GKN had a hazardous materials business plan, a lower-level document listing chemicals stored at the facility, but did not have a risk management plan. The county said CalARP does not apply to the plant because methyl methacrylate is not on the program’s list of regulated chemicals.

CalMatters also asked the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health whether workplace safety rules for high-risk industrial processes applied to the facility, which could have made it subject to accidental release rules through another route. The facility had been the subject of several occupational safety and health inspections before the tank emergency. Cal/OSHA did not answer the question before deadline.

Williams said chemicals outside federal and state accidental release programs may also be excluded from community emergency planning and drills, leaving nearby residents unsure of the risks or how officials would respond.

GKN did not respond to written questions before deadline. In recent days, the company has thanked the community and emergency responders.

“We recognize that much work remains,” said Steve Carlin, a senior vice president at GKN who oversees programs at the Garden Grove facility.

Angela Johnson Meszaros, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, said residents near facilities such as GKN have reason to believe regulators are ensuring safety.

When something like this happens, she said, people become angry because they wonder, “Wait, nobody was paying attention to this, and now I’m sleeping on the sidewalk?”

She said the broader regulatory system is aimed at bringing companies into compliance, not necessarily ensuring they are safe enough to operate near dense neighborhoods.

“We have a system built around the idea of getting facilities into compliance,” she said. “But we need a system that ensures they operate safely, and some facilities may not have a culture that allows us to trust them with our lives.”

It remains unclear whether any single agency will produce a full public account of what went wrong.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has opened a criminal investigation, spokesperson Kimberly Edds confirmed. Prosecutors sent letters to GKN instructing the company not to destroy or alter evidence.

The office is gathering information through an anonymous tip line about the chemical release, the operation of the facility and the maintenance of the tanks and related systems.

California law makes it a crime to knowingly or negligently handle or store hazardous waste in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of fire, explosion, serious injury or death. Edds declined to say which specific areas of law investigators are examining.

In a similar 2024 case, Alameda County prosecutors charged a scrap metal company after a fire exposed years of alleged hazardous materials violations. Prosecutors later dropped the case, saying they could not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

On the regulatory side, no agency is responsible for issuing one comprehensive report on the Garden Grove incident. Instead, each agency involved in the emergency will prepare its own findings and release them according to its own policies and timeline, said Brian Yau, a spokesperson for the Orange County Fire Authority.

Yau said hazardous materials officials, air quality regulators, environmental officials and the company were developing a cleanup plan for the site. On Friday, the fire authority transferred oversight of cleanup and remediation to the county health agency, fire authority spokesperson Greg Barta said.

Asked whether he was concerned about industrial facilities operating near heavily populated neighborhoods, Newsom praised local and state emergency responders and said the state is reviewing the plant’s safety history. He also acknowledged the difficulty of addressing industrial sites embedded in urban areas.

“When it comes to industrial facilities in and around urban centers,” Newsom said at a Thursday news conference, “that is a more complex geographic issue.”

State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Santa Ana Democrat, said legislation will be proposed in response to the narrowly avoided disaster.

Williams, of California Communities Against Toxics, said the emergency should prompt a broader review of California’s rules for hazardous industrial sites — not only at GKN, but at every facility storing chemicals that fall outside the state’s most rigorous oversight programs.

“Everyone wants to get back to normal as quickly as possible because people’s nerves are frayed, and the way to calm down is to go home, sit on the couch and hug your cat,” Williams said. “But in a situation like this, where such a serious incident occurred, it is critical to make sure the safety systems that failed are not the only ones at risk.”

Original source: CalMatters

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“I’ve never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now,” said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state’s rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbors, many of whom couldn’t get insurance on their homes.

Helene blew ashore in Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140 mph (225 kph).

From there, it quickly moved through Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp said Saturday that it “looks like a bomb went off” after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air. Weakened, Helene then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains, sending creeks and rivers over their banks and straining dams.

Western North Carolina was isolated because of landslides and flooding that forced the closure of Interstate 40 and other roads. All those closures delayed the start of the East Tennessee State University football game against The Citadel because the Buccaneers’ drive to Charleston, South Carolina, took 16 hours.

There have been hundreds of water rescues, none more dramatic than in rural Unicoi County in East Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop Friday. And the rescues continued into the following day in Buncombe County, North Carolina, where part of Asheville was under water.

“To say this caught us off guard would be an understatement,” said Quentin Miller, the county sheriff.

Asheville resident Mario Moraga said it’s “heartbreaking” to see the damage in the Biltmore Village neighborhood and neighbors have been going house to house to check on each other and offer support.“There’s no cell service here. There’s no electricity,” he said.

While there have been deaths in the county, Emergency Services Director Van Taylor Jones said he wasn’t ready to report specifics, partially because downed cell towers hindered efforts to contact next of kin.

Relatives put out desperate pleas for help on Facebook. Among those waiting for news was Francine Cavanaugh, whose sister told her she was going to check on guests at a vacation cabin as the storm began hitting Asheville. Cavanaugh, who lives in Atlanta, hasn’t been able to reach her since then.

“I think that people are just completely stuck,” she said.

The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.

‘Catastrophic’ flooding

It unleashed the worst flooding in a century in North Carolina, where Gov. Roy Cooper described it as “catastrophic” as search and rescue teams from 19 states and the federal government came to help. One community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 feet (0.6 meters) of rain from Tuesday through Saturday.

And in Atlanta, 11.12 inches (28.24 centimeters) of rain fell over 48 hours, the most the city has seen over two days since record keeping began in 1878.

President Joe Biden said Saturday that Helene’s devastation has been “overwhelming” and pledged to send help. He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available for affected individuals.

With at least 25 killed in South Carolina, Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone for the state since Hurricane Hugo killed 35 people when it came ashore just north of Charleston in 1989. Deaths also have been reported in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

Moody’s Analytics said it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage. AccuWeather’s preliminary estimate of the total damage and economic loss from Helene in the U.S. is between $95 billion and $110 billion.

Climate change has exacerbated conditions that allow such storms to thrive, rapidly intensifying in warming waters and turning into powerful cyclones sometimes in a matter of hours.

The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.

Evacuations and overtopped dams

Evacuations began before the storm hit and continued as lakes overtopped dams, including one in North Carolina that forms a lake featured in the movie “Dirty Dancing.” Helicopters were used to rescue some people from flooded homes.

And in Newport, Tennessee, Jonah Wark waited so long to evacuate that a boat had to come to the rescue. “Definitely a scary moment,” Wark said.

After touring the damage by helicopter, a stunned U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger said, “Who would have thought a hurricane would do this much damage in East Tennessee?”

Among the 11 confirmed deaths in Florida were nine people who drowned in their homes in a mandatory evacuation area on the Gulf Coast in Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg is located, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

None of the victims were from Taylor County, which is where the storm made landfall. It came ashore near the mouth of the Aucilla River, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of where Hurricane Idalia hit last year at nearly the same ferocity.

“If you had told me there was going to be 15 feet to 18 feet of storm surge, even with the best efforts, I would have assumed we would have had multiple fatalities,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Saturday.

Taylor County is in Florida’s Big Bend, went years without taking a direct hit from a hurricane. But after Idalia and two other storms in a little over a year, the area is beginning to feel like a hurricane superhighway.

“It’s bringing everybody to reality about what this is now with disasters,” said John Berg, 76, a resident of Steinhatchee, a small fishing town and weekend getaway.

Timmy Futch of Horseshoe Beach stayed put for the hurricane before driving to high ground when the water reached his house. many homes in the town, which his grandfather helped found, were reduced to piles of lumber.

“We watched our town get tore to pieces,” Futch said.

The storm, now a post-tropical cyclone, was expected to hover over the Tennessee Valley on Saturday and Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.

The aftermath

A Florida resident provided a devastating first-hand look at hard-hit Cedar Key Friday morning after parts of the town were flattened by Hurricane Helene.

About 60 miles (100 kilometers) to the north, cars lined up before sunrise Saturday at a free food distribution site in Perry, Florida, amid widespread power outages.

“We’re making it one day at a time,” said Sierra Land, who lost everything in her fridge, as she arrived at the site with her 5- and 10-year-old sons and her grandmother.

Thousands of utility crew workers descended upon Florida in advance of the hurricane, and by Saturday power was restored to more than 1.9 million homes and businesses. But hundreds of thousands remain without electricity there and in Georgia.

Chris Stallings, director of the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, said crews were focused on opening routes to hospitals and making sure supplies can be delivered to damaged communities.

Helene was the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has predicted an above-average season this year because of record-warm ocean temperatures.

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California is only now heading into the teeth of the wildfire season but already has seen nearly three times as much acreage burn than during all of 2023. The wildfires have threatened tens of thousands of homes and other structures across Southern California since they accelerated during a triple-digit heat wave over the weekend.

No deaths have been reported, but at least a dozen people, mainly firefighters, were been treated for injuries, mostly heat-related, authorities said.

In the small community of Wrightwood, about 90 minutes outside Los Angeles, authorities implored residents to flee the exploding Bridge Fire, which has burned more than a dozen homes in the area.

Resident Erin Arias said she was racing up the mountain when she got the order to leave and did, grabbing her passport and dog. On Wednesday, she and her husband doused water on the roof of their still-standing home. Their cat was missing, she said.

“It’s absolutely scary,” Arias said, looking at the burned embers of her neighbor’s home. “We’re really lucky.”

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the fire moved extraordinarily fast across complex terrain, likely giving residents less time to evacuate than usual and surprising even seasoned fire officials.

The Bridge Fire “had to go up mountain sides, burn down slope, jump across valleys, burn across new ridges, and then make it down slope again at least two other times in effectively one burning period,” he said.

The full extent of the damage caused by the fires remained unclear. The three blazes are:

— The Airport Fire in Orange County, which has burned more than 35 square miles (91 square kilometers). The fire was 5% contained Wednesday night and was reportedly sparked by heavy equipment operating in the area. Orange County Fire Capt. Steve Concialdi said eight firefighters have been treated for injuries, mostly heat-related. One resident suffered smoke inhalation and another burns, he said. Several homes burned in El Cariso Village.

— The Line Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest, which was 18% contained Wednesday and had charred 57 square miles (148 square kilometers). The blaze has injured three firefighters. Authorities said it was caused by arson in Highland. A suspect was arrested Tuesday.

— The Bridge Fire east of Los Angeles, which grew tenfold in a day and has burned 78 square miles (202 square kilometers), torched at least 33 homes and six cabins and forced the evacuation of 10,000 people. The cause of the fire is not yet known. It remained zero percent contained Wednesday night.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sent National Guard troops in to help with evacuations, and the White House said President Joe Biden was monitoring the situation.

In El Cariso Village, a community of 250 people along Highway 74 in Riverside County, an Associated Press photographer saw at least 10 homes and several cars engulfed in flames.

Orange County Fire Authority Incident Commander Kevin Fetterman said the blaze has been difficult to tame because of the terrain and dry conditions and because some areas hadn’t burned in decades.

More than 5,500 homes in Riverside County were under evacuation orders, affecting more than 19,000 residents. Several recreational cabins and structures in the Cleveland National Forest have been damaged.

In San Bernardino County, some 65,600 homes and buildings were under threat by the Line Fire, and residents along the southern edge of Big Bear Lake were told to leave Tuesday.

The Line Fire blanketed the area with a thick cloud of dark smoke, which provided shade for firefighters trying to get ahead of winds expected later Wednesday, said Fabian Herrera, a spokesperson for those battling the Line Fire.

A man from the town of Norco suspected of starting the Line Fire on Sept. 5 was arrested and charged with arson, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. Officials did not specify what was used to start the fire.

Investigators collected evidence from the man’s vehicle and home that suggests he could have been involved in starting other fires, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said Wednesday.

On the Nevada border with California near Reno, the Davis Fire forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend, destroyed one home and a dozen structures and charred nearly 9 square miles (23 square kilometers) of timber and brush along the Sierra Nevada’s eastern front.

Rich Meyr and Evelyn Kelley were the first arrivals at an evacuation center set up Wednesday at a recreation center in south Reno. Both said they refused to evacuate previous fires but decided to play it safe this time.

“My son’s wedding is Saturday. I threw all the flowers and gowns in the RV and we left. It looks like a garden shop inside that RV,” Kelley said. “But who wants to burn alive?”

More than 600 firefighters kept the blaze from growing Wednesday despite high winds that grounded all aircraft that had dropped retardant on the flames over the past two days. The fire was about 30% contained Wednesday night.

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At least a dozen people, mainly firefighters, were treated for injuries that were mostly heat-related, authorities said. One person from Orange County was burned. No deaths have been reported.

The wildfires have been endangering tens of thousands of homes and other structures across the region after they sprung to life during a triple-digit heat wave over the weekend. Other major fires were burning in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada, where about 20,000 people had to flee a blaze outside Reno.

In the tight-knit community of Wrightwood that sits on the Pacific Crest Trail, authorities implored residents to evacuate the exploding Bridge Fire, which burned more than a dozen homes in the area.

Resident Erin Arias said she was racing up the mountain when she got the sudden order to leave and did, grabbing her passport and dog. On Wednesday, she and her husband doused water on the roof of their still-standing home. Their cat was missing, she said.

“It’s absolutely scary,” Arias said, looking at the burned embers of her neighbor’s home. “We’re really lucky.”

UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said the fire moved extraordinarily fast across complex terrain, likely giving Wrightwood residents less time to evacuate than usual and surprising even seasoned fire officials.

The Bridge Fire “had to go up mountain sides, burn down slope, jump across valleys, burn across new ridges, and then make it down slope again at least two other times in effectively one burning period,” he said.

California is only now heading into the teeth of the wildfire season but already has seen nearly three times as much acreage burn than during all of 2023. The White House said President Joe Biden was monitoring the wildfires in the West and urged residents to heed state and local evacuation orders.

Cooler temperatures were expected to potentially start tempering fire activity as the week progresses.

The full extent of the damage was not immediately known as firefighters battled multiple fires simultaneously. The three blazes include:

— The Airport Fire in Orange County that burned over 35 square miles (91 square kilometers). The fire was 5% contained Wednesday night and was reportedly sparked by heavy equipment operating in the area. Orange County Fire Capt. Steve Concialdi said eight firefighters were injured, mostly heat-related. One resident suffered smoke inhalation and another burns, he said. Several homes burned in El Cariso Village.

— The Line Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest that was 18% contained Wednesday and charred 57 square miles (148 square kilometers). The blaze injured three firefighters. Authorities said it was caused by arson in Highland. A suspect was arrested Tuesday.

— The Bridge Fire east of Los Angeles that grew tenfold in a day, burning 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) and torching at least 33 homes and six cabins and forcing the evacuation of 10,000 people. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. It was zero percent contained Wednesday night.

With so many fires raging at once, crews were at their limits, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.

“As a region, we’re currently at drawdown for fire personnel and resources,” he said, adding that authorities have requested assistance from Northern California and nearby states.

Gov. Gavin Newsom sent National Guard troops in to help with evacuations.

In El Cariso Village, a community of 250 along Highway 74 in Riverside County, an Associated Press photographer saw at least 10 homes and several cars engulfed in flames.

Kevin Fetterman, Orange County Fire Authority Incident Commander, said the blaze has been difficult to tame because of the terrain and dry conditions and because some areas hadn’t burned in decades.

More than 5,500 homes in Riverside County were under evacuation orders, affecting more than 19,000 residents. Several recreational cabins and structures in the Cleveland National Forest were damaged.

In San Bernardino County, some 65,600 homes and buildings were under threat by the Line Fire, and residents along the southern edge of Big Bear Lake were told to leave Tuesday.

The Line Fire blanketed the area with a thick cloud of dark smoke, which provided shade for firefighters trying to get ahead of winds expected later Wednesday, said Fabian Herrera, a spokesperson for the Line Fire.

A man from the town of Norco suspected of starting the Line Fire on Sept. 5 was arrested and charged with arson, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. Officials did not specify what was used to start the fire.

Investigators collected evidence from the delivery driver’s vehicle and home that suggests he could have been involved in starting other fires, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said Wednesday.

On the Nevada border with California near Reno, the Davis Fire forced thousands of people to evacuate over the weekend, destroyed one home and a dozen structures and charred nearly 9 square miles (23 square kilometers) of timber and brush along the Sierra Nevada’s eastern front.

Rich Meyr and Evelyn Kelley were the first arrivals at an evacuation center set up Wednesday at a recreation center in south Reno. Both said they refused to evacuate previous fires but decided to play it safe this time.

“My son’s wedding is Saturday. I threw all the flowers and gowns in the RV and we left. It looks like a garden shop inside that RV,” Kelley said. “But who wants to burn alive?”

More than 600 firefighters kept the blaze from growing Wednesday despite high winds that grounded all aircraft that had dropped retardant on the flames over the past two days. The fire was about 30% contained Wednesday night.

Elsewhere, a Colorado man was charged with arson after an investigation into a wildfire this summer that destroyed 29 homes and caused more than $30 million in property damage near Loveland, Colorado.

___

Thayer reported from El Cariso Village, Taxin from Santa Ana, California, and Rodriguez from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana, Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed.

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WEED, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire that has put thousands of people under evacuation orders in Northern California grew substantially but firefighters had some success against the flames, authorities said Wednesday.

The fire covered more than 27 square miles (70 square kilometers) but crews “made good progress on the western edge of the fire, cutting off progression into the communities,” Shasta-Trinity National Forest said in a statement.

Containment was estimated at 19%.

All evacuation orders issued by the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Offic remained in effect for the communities of Lake Shastina and Juniper Valley north of the city of Weed, about 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of San Francisco.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who traveled to the area on Tuesday and received a briefing from fire officials, announced that the state secured a federal grant that will help local, state and tribal agencies receive reimbursement for certain fire suppression costs.

Newsom and other governors from the drought- and heat-plagued West were to meet with President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

Burning in the shadow of the towering Mount Shasta volcano, the Lava Fire was ignited by lightning last week.

Another wildfire to the northeast has grown to more than 9 square miles (23 square kilometers).

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