A fast-moving new wildfire has broken out in Los Angeles County, prompting tens of thousands to evacuate a region already suffering from the most destructive fire in its history.
The Hughes Fire broke out on Wednesday morning in a mountainous area near Castaic Lake, about 45 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, bordering several residential areas and schools.
The fire grew to more than 9,200 acres in a few hours on Wednesday, being spread by winds and dry brush. No homes or businesses were damaged and fire officials expressed confidence that the fire was under control.
The new fire is located north of two massive blazes that destroyed several neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area earlier this month and are still burning.
Local news reports show residents near the Hughes Fire rushing to extinguish their homes and gardens with water and evacuate neighborhoods.
Orange flames spread across the hillsides as aircraft dropped water and firefighting materials.
The region is again under a high fire alert due to strong winds and dry, low humidity conditions.
Winds in the area were gusting to 20 to 30 mph (32 to 48 kph), but could increase, fanning the flames and making it difficult for air crews to operate.
About 31,000 people in the area are under mandatory evacuation orders and another 23,000 have been warned to evacuate, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said. He added that nearly 500 inmates were making progress at the scene.
The fire continued to grow as the sun set, but Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marone said he believed crews were making progress.
“The situation is still dynamic, it remains a difficult fire to control, but we are gaining the upper hand,” he said.
Chief Marone explained how different this fire is compared to the Palisades and Eaton fires earlier this month, which killed at least 28 people and destroyed more than 10,000 homes and businesses.
He said it was a mix of low winds, unlike the 70 to 90 mph winds seen in previous wildfires, and that there were a lot of helicopters and planes overhead to help fight the fire.
“I think we’ve all been on edge for the last 16 days,” he said. “We’ve been able to mobilize a lot of firefighting resources quickly to change what this fire looks like.”
Ed Fletcher, who works for Cal Fire, California’s state firefighting agency, told the BBC that this fire is different from the one that broke out earlier this month. He said the winds were not yet as strong and most crews were trying to control the flames.
“It’s very dry, we know it’s going to get windier,” he said. “We’ll know more in a few hours.”
Mr. Fletcher noted that the area is not heavily populated, and that current winds are blowing the fire toward Lake Castaic, which acts as a buffer between the city of Castaic, which has about 20,000 residents.
“If it gets out of the lake,” he said, “it becomes a much more dynamic situation.”
One woman who fled her home told NBC 4 that she was stranded on Interstate 5, the primary transportation highway that runs through the state of California. Portions of the interstate in the area were closed due to the fire.
“It looked like a cloud, but as you got closer, it looked like we were going to hell,” she said of the dark smoke and red flames she saw. “It was pretty scary to be honest with you.”
She admitted that she was on edge after watching the fire burn near Palisades and Eaton.
“I don’t know why they keep coming,” she said. “It’s a scary time in this area.”
Two other fires broke out Wednesday near San Diego and Oceanside, officials said.
Both were small — 85 acres for the Lilac fire near Oceanside and 3.9 acres for the Central fire — but burned in densely populated areas. Firefighters appeared to have both fires under control, and evacuation orders had been largely lifted.
Angeles National Forest spokeswoman Dana Dierks said winds and dry brush had made these recent fires very difficult to fight.
“We don’t have a fire season in California. We have a fire year,” she said. “We’ve had fires in January before, but they’ve been exacerbated by the Santa Ana winds. Wind is a big factor when we have a dry year like this.”
Rain is forecast for the region over the weekend, which is welcome news for curbing the fire threat. But the rain brings new fears in the form of mudslides, flooding and landslides.
Areas affected by recent wildfires are particularly vulnerable, as the scorched ground is less able to absorb the fire.