‘This is serious, you need to leave’: Bodfish residents urged to evacuate

BODFISH, Calif. ( KGET ) — The destruction from the monstrous Borel Fire kept crews in the mountains battling the fire storm, and it’s coming toward the town of Bodfish.

The fire grew exponentially in size within 24 hours and consumed everything in its path including burning cars and trucks to ash. On Day 4, some Bodfish residents are leaving town but some are refusing to evacuate.

“If you get ordered out, go,” said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood on Saturday. “We don’t want this to turn into the Paradise Fire where there’s hundreds of people and have to go back and remove bodies at the end of this.”

More than a thousand personnel are focused on the same mission of saving lives.

“It allows us to focus our efforts on purely point protection and firefighting, and not necessarily pulling resources to go find people and evacuating that part of it,” said Chief Deputy Dionisio Mitchell with the Kern County Fire Department.

Hotshot crews are doing everything they can to tame the wildfire. More than 10 aircraft are conducting water drops. Bulldozers are climbing steep terrain to dig fire breaks and deputies are knocking on doors asking people to leave.

Robert Rector is staying to guard his home.

“They got people up here that’ll come in and ransack your home and steal what property you have,” said Rector. “So, they’re going to set here and protect themselves as long as they can.”

Rector said the women and children are leaving, but the men are staying to protect their property.

Men like his neighbor, John.

“He just asked me if I’m staying or leaving. I told him I’m staying,” said John.

Ron Evans decided to leave after seeing the fire grow overnight. He packed clothes, a generator and his dog. He wants his neighbors to do the same in the name of safety.

“This is serious. You need to leave,” said Evans.

The Red Cross has two evacuation centers for those affected by the Borel Fire. One is at Burroughs High School on East French Avenue in Ridgecrest. The other is at the Tehachapi Education Center on South Snyder Avenue in Tehachapi.

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