A community meeting to discuss potential flooding and debris flows in areas of the San Jacinto Mountains blackened by the Cranston Fire has been set for Monday.
Various agencies -- including Cal Fire, Caltrans and the Riverside County Sheriff's Department -- will discuss the threats at 6 p.m. in the Idyllwild School gymnasium, 26700 Highway 243.
The meeting was originally scheduled for Friday, Aug. 17 but was canceled due to flood warnings, which also prompted evacuations of Hurkey Creek, Apple Canyon, Fleming Ranch and Strawberry Creek -- all communities just south of Idyllwild.
The Cranston Fire, which burned 13,139 acres in the San Bernardino National Forest, took more than two weeks to contain.
The blaze began around noon July 25 off Highway 74 in the San Jacinto Mountains between Hemet and Mountain Center, just east of the Cranston Fire Station, and destroyed about a dozen homes, while prompting the evacuations of thousands of residents living in the mountain communities of Idyllwild, Mountain Center, Lake Hemet, Pine Cove and other surrounding cities.
Three firefighters were injured in the battle to knock down the fire, which saw more than 1,000 fire personnel from across the state on scene during the height of the firefight.
A Temecula man, 32-year-old Brandon N. McGlover, allegedly set nine fires on July 25, including the one that became the Cranston blaze.
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McGlover was arrested near Newport Road and State Street in Hemet about 12:30 p.m. the day the fire broke out and charged two days later with 15 felony arson counts. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held in lieu of $3.5 million bail pending a Sept. 24 felony settlement conference.
