Overview
- The Sandy Fire ignited on Monday and has since grown to more than 2,100 acres with containment improving to about 30 percent, officials said.
- More than 43,700 Simi Valley residents were placed under evacuation orders and hundreds more under warnings as crews worked to protect homes and infrastructure.
- Firefighters have prioritized defensive lines and installed fire-control features around the Santa Susana Field Laboratory while Boeing evacuated nonessential staff and federal agencies monitor the site.
- The Santa Susana Field Laboratory is a decades-contaminated former nuclear and rocket-testing complex where state regulators say soil and groundwater contain solvents, heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons and radionuclides.
- Experts and health officials say smoke from wildfires already harms lungs and that burning contaminated areas could add industrial toxins and low-level radionuclides to the plume, so air monitors have been deployed to establish baselines and watch for changes.