Latest reports suggest that firefighters fought to maintain the upper hand on a huge and rapidly moving wildfire that swept through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles and resulted in more than 50,000 people being put under evacuation orders or warnings.
The Hughes fire broke out late Wednesday morning and in less than a day had charred nearly 16 sq miles (41 sq km) of trees and brush near Castaic Lake, a popular recreation area about 40 miles (64km) from the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that are burning for a third week.
Though the region was under a red flag warning for critical fire risk, winds were not as fast as they had been when those fires broke out, allowing for firefighting aircraft to dump tens of thousands of gallons of fire retardant on the latest blaze. By Thursday night, about 36% of the Hughes fire had been contained.
Two fires broke out on Thursday afternoon in San Diego. The Gilman fire prompted evacuations for neighborhoods south of UC San Diego but fire officials had stopped forward progress of the blaze by mid-afternoon, after it burned about two acres. Meanwhile, a second fast-moving wildfire broke out in the Otay mountains area and reached 300 acres by Thursday evening, as CalFire officials said the blaze had a “dangerous rate of spread”.
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Late on Wednesday, a new 45-acre brush blaze, dubbed the Sepulveda fire, started near Interstate 405 – the country’s busiest highway – as well as the Getty Museum and the neighborhood of Bel-Air. By early Thursday morning, firefighters said they had contained it.
“The situation that we’re in today is very different from the situation we were in 16 days ago,” the Los Angeles county fire chief, Anthony Marrone, said on Wednesday evening.
Red flag warnings were extended through 10am on Friday in LA and Ventura counties. Officials remained concerned that the Palisades and Eaton fires could break their containment lines as firefighters continue watching for hot spots.
More than 31,000 people have been ordered to evacuate from the Hughes fire, and another 23,000 are under evacuation warnings, the LA county sheriff, Robert Luna, said. There were no reports of homes or other structures burned.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
