Firefighter Injured Battling Thermal Brushfire

By City News Service, image via Shutterstock

A firefighter was injured Thursday afternoon battling a fast-moving brush fire that broke out in a Thermal palm grove and destroyed three homes and numerous outbuildings, authorities said.

The blaze was reported at 2:16 p.m. in the 57000 block of Grapefruit Boulevard, also known as Highway 111. It had blacked about 60 acres as of 6 p.m. and was burning amid heavy vegetation, storage cabinets and stored diesel fuel, according to the Riverside County Fire Department.

About 4:45 p.m., fire officials reported that one firefighter was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The temperature reached 117 degrees this afternoon in Thermal.

Grapefruit Boulevard was closed to traffic south of Church Street, and the Union Pacific Railroad stopped train traffic on the tracks that run parallel to and east of the roadway, Jennifer Fuhrman of the Riverside County Fire Department said.

As of 6 p.m., firefighters had stopped the spread and the blaze was said to be 5 percent contained.