Mias Fire Day 2: Hundreds Fight Banning Blaze Sparked (Indirectly) By Bees

BANNING, CA — A large wildfire that was sparked in the Banning area on Monday afternoon because of a beehive continued to burn towards Morongo Tuesday, but fire officials were optimistic the size would not grow as they worked to build containment. The Mias Fire was five percent contained and had burned an estimated 540 acres as of Tuesday morning. And by Tuesday evening, the acreage remained the same, but containment grew to 40 percent.

The fire started around 3:45 p.m. Monday in the Mias Canyon area. Within an hour, a large smoke plume was visible across much of the region as it took off burning through medium to heavy brush in the area.

By Monday night, fire crews had determined what sparked the blaze: bees. Well, sort of.

"The cause of the fire has been determined to be a tree branch that fell into powerlines," fire officials said in an incident report. "The branch had been weakened by an active beehive inside of the tree."

When Patch spoke with fire officials on Tuesday, they doubled down on that assumption, and called the scenario a "freak accident."

"It's a very interesting thing," Riverside County Fire Department Fire Capt. Lucas Spelman said. "I don't believe I've ever heard of this before, this specific. But there was an oak tree, a beehive had been in there many, many years and essentially it just rotted out a section of that tree which the branch was connected to."

"The branch finally failed, which somebody from the outside wouldn't have noticed that it was rotting inside," he said. "So that branch broke. It actually snapped the powerline going to a home."

Spelman said the homeowner actually had "ample" amount of clearance between their vegetation and the pole and neither Southern California Edison nor the homeowner were to blame.

"It just ended up hitting in a spot just where the powerline could spark it and the fire could go," he said. "It really was just one of those, what we like to call, 'freak accidents,' that something of that nature would happen."

Other than the power pole, no other damages or injuries have been reported.

Nearly 300 firefighters have been assigned to the fight the fire, along with 3 helicopters, 7 air tankers, 5 water tenders and 3 bulldozers.

The fire's size was estimated at 600 acres on Monday night, but due to better mapping Tuesday morning, that figure was downgraded to 540 acres.

The Riverside County Fire Department is being assisted by the California Highway Patrol (CHP), the Morongo Fire Department, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, Southern California Edison and USFS – San Bernardino.

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Left photo of tree by Renee Schiavone / Right photos of fire courtesy: Morongo Fire Chief Kevin Gaines