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Smoke Jumpers Contain Unusual Lighting-Sparked Blaze In Channel Islands

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.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral. 
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