A fast-moving wildfire fuelled by heavy winds was tearing through a community northwest of Los Angeles for a second day Thursday after destroying dozens of homes and forcing thousands of residents to flee when it exploded in size in only a few hours.
The Mountain Fire prompted evacuation orders Wednesday for more than 10,000 people as it threatened 3,500 structures in suburban communities, ranches and agricultural areas around Camarillo, a city of about 70,000 residents, Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
The fire was at zero per cent containment late Wednesday, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. The National Weather Service said a red-flag warning, which indicates a “particularly dangerous situation” for extreme fires, would remain in effect through Friday. Winds were expected to decrease significantly by Thursday night, the weather service said.
That type of alert hasn’t been issued in the area since 2020, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Officials in several Southern California counties urged residents to be on watch for fast-spreading blazes, power outages and downed trees amid the latest round of notorious Santa Ana winds.
With predicted gusts up to 80 km/h and humidity levels as low as nine per ent, parts of Southern California could experience conditions ripe for “extreme and life-threatening” fire behaviour into Thursday, the weather service said. Wind gusts topped 98 km/h on Wednesday.
‘As intense as it gets’
A thick plume of smoke rose hundreds of feet into the sky Wednesday, blanketing whole neighbourhoods and limiting visibility for firefighters and evacuees. The fire grew from less 1.2 square kilometres to more than 62 square kilometres in little more than five hours.
First responders pleaded with residents to evacuate. Deputies made contact with 14,000 people to urge them to leave as embers spread for kilometres and sparked new flames.
Ventura County Fire Capt. Trevor Johnson described crews racing with their engines to homes threatened by the flames to save lives.
“This is as intense as it gets. The hair on the back of the firefighters’ neck I’m sure was standing up,” he said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
Two people suffered apparent smoke inhalation and were taken to hospitals Wednesday, fire officials said. No firefighters reported significant injuries.
Officials said they were using all resources, including water-dropping helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft dropping fire retardant, but it was still burning out of control.
The Mountain Fire was burning in a region that has seen some of California’s most destructive fires over the years.
Wednesday’s fires were burning in the same areas of other recent destructive fires, including the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which killed three people and destroyed 1,600 homes near Los Angeles, and the 2017 Thomas Fire, which destroyed more than a thousand homes and other structures in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Southern California Edison, one of the largest utilities in the U.S., has paid tens of millions of dollars to settle claims after its equipment was blamed for both blazes.
Forecasters also issued red-flag warnings until Thursday from California’s central coast through the San Francisco Bay Area and into counties to the north, where strong winds were also expected. Utilities in California began powering down equipment as some wildfires in recent years have been sparked by electrical lines and other infrastructure. On Wednesday, more than 65,000 customers in Southern California were without power preventatively and upwards of 20,000 in Northern California.
