Southern California wildfire edges closer to containment; 8K acres burned so far

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif., Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Firefighters are nudging closer to full containment of a wildfire that has so far destroyed nearly 12 square miles of land south of Los Angeles, authorities said Wednesday.

The Pilot Fire has been burning in San Bernardino County since Sunday. After growing by thousands of acres at only 5 percent containment on Monday, fire officials said they began getting a better handle on the flames.

Wednesday afternoon, the wildfire had destroyed almost 8,000 acres, according to authorities, and was nearly 65 percent contained. About 1,800 firefighters are working on the blaze, along with various suppression equipment.

One of the many fire crews headed out to work the #PilotFire pic.twitter.com/TSjxt4MB7z

— San Bernardino NF (@SanBernardinoNF) August 10, 2016

Officials said the greater containment figure is largely due to multiple containment lines firefighters have been putting into place over the last three days.

"Until we actually are convinced that those lines have been tested and are going to hold, we're not going to include them in that total," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Bob Poole told the Los Angeles Times. "Those lines that were built – now we're convinced that they're good, solid lines."

"These guys and girls really busted their butts overnight and really built some containment lines," San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman Eric Sherwin said Wednesday.

Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire. No injuries or structural damage has so far been reported.

The Pilot Fire is located about 75 miles northeast of Los Angeles.