FARIA BEACH/LILAC: Firefighters battled several intense wind-driven wildfires early on Friday across densely populated Southern California that have destroyed at least 500 structures and chased tens of thousands of people from their homes over the past five days.
More than 5,700 firefighters from across California and the region worked to stop the spread of six large wildfires and other smaller blazes that have erupted since Monday, from Los Angeles up the Pacific coast to Santa Barbara County, and stoked by fierce westward Santa Ana winds.
Firefighters and helicopters sprayed and dumped water and fire retardant on the inferno, against a hellish backdrop of flaming mountains and walls of smoke as the blaze hopscotched over highways and railroad tracks and torched rows of houses.
The raging fires have forced the evacuation of about 190,000 people and threatened 23,000 homes as of late on Thursday, CAL FIRE said in a post on Twitter.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s second largest with more than 640,000 students, closed more than a quarter of its nearly 1,100 schools for a second day on Friday. The University of California Santa Barbara cancelled Friday classes as well.
The Thomas Fire northwest of Los Angeles grew to 115,000 acres (46,540 hectares) from 96,000 acres and destroyed 439 structures, officials said. More than 2,600 firefighters from as far away as Portland, Oregon, and Nevada were battling the blaze, which was just 5 per cent contained. North of San Diego, another blaze called the Lilac Fire swelled from 10 acres to 4,100 acres in just a few hours on Thursday, CAL FIRE said, prompting Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency for San Diego County.
The blaze destroyed 20 structures and prompted evacuations and road closures. Propane tanks under several houses exploded from the heat, sounding like bombs, according to a Reuters photographer at the scene.
Three people sustained burn injuries and another suffered from smoke inhalation in the Lilac Fire. Two firefighters were also injured, CAL FIRE said on Twitter early on Friday.
The other fires, which broke out on Monday and Tuesday, have reached into the wealthy enclave of Bel-Air on the west side of Los Angeles. Some major highways in the densely populated area were intermittently closed.
In the seaside enclave of Faria Beach, caught between burning mountains and the Pacific Ocean northwest of Ventura, fires spread down the smoking hills. Flames jumped the heavily used US 101 highway and headed towards clusters of beach houses. Firefighters lined up along a railroad track, the last barrier from the flames.
Heavy smoke made breathing hazardous in some areas, and residents were urged to stay indoors. Ventura County authorities said air pollution measures in the Ojai Valley were “off the charts.”
— Reuters
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