Plato Fire Burning Near Vandenberg Space Launch Complex

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[Update: Fri., April 3, 2026, 4:14 p.m.] As of 4 pm Friday, April 3, ahead progress has been stopped on the Plato Fire, in line with an replace posted on the WatchDuty app. Incident Command estimates that the fireplace reached a dimension of about 22.8 acres.

[Original Story] A fireplace is at present burning close to a Vandenberg area launch advanced. The fireplace is about 13 miles from Lompoc.

At 1:24 pm, a reporter on WatchDutya web site that tracks wildfires, uploaded video footage and a publish that mentioned firefighters have been on-scene of a 2-acre fireplace. The footage got here from AlertCalifornia, a UC San Diego–primarily based web site that screens wildfires within the state.

Vandenberg mentioned that the fireplace division on-base is working to get a boundary estimate for the fireplace and include it, and has reached out for mutual support. Santa Barbara County’s Fire Department mentioned they’d firefighters aiding on-scene.

It is unclear the present dimension of the fireplace; Vandenberg doesn’t but have an estimate, however at 2:13 pm, a WatchDuty publish mentioned the fireplace had unfold to 10 acres and was at 0 % containment.