An unusual brush fire on the South Coast is being mopped up by an even more unusual team of firefighters.
Smoke jumpers dropped in to battle, and stop a lightning-sparked brush fire burning on Santa Cruz Island.
A boater spotted the fire at about 9 a.m. Monday in the Scorpion Canyon area.
A team of four U.S. Forest Service smoke jumpers was dispatched from Porterville to battle the lighting-caused fire. They were dropped into the area from a fixed-wing plane yesterday afternoon, and went to work fighting the flames.
The fire was fully contained at around eight a.m. Tuesday. It only burned about a tenth of an acre of land, but because it’s in a rugged canyon, putting it out has mean a lot of work for the firefighters.
It’s expected they’ll have it completely mopped up Wednesday.