Southern California Has Gone Without Significant Rain for Nine Months
A new wildfire that broke out north of Los Angeles on Wednesday rapidly spread to over 9,400 acres (38 square kilometers), driven by strong winds and dry brush, forcing mandatory evacuation orders for over 31,000 people.
The Hughes fire, located about 80 kilometers north of Los Angeles, further stressed the region’s firefighters, who had largely brought two major fires in the metropolitan area under control.
In just a few hours on Wednesday, the new fire grew to two-thirds the size of the Eaton Fire, one of the two massive wildfires that have ravaged the Los Angeles area.
Officials warned people in the Castaic Lake area of Los Angeles County of an “immediate threat to life,” while much of Southern California remained under a red-flag warning for extreme fire risk due to strong, dry winds.
Around 31,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders, with another 23,000 facing evacuation warnings, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said in a press conference.
The Angeles National Forest announced that its entire 700,000-acre (2,800-square-kilometer) park in the San Gabriel Mountains was closed to visitors.
Due to the red-flag warning, about 1,100 firefighters were deployed throughout Southern California to handle fast-moving fires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Over 4,000 firefighters were working on the Hughes Fire, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.
Southern California has gone without significant rain for nine months, contributing to hazardous conditions, but some rain was forecast from Saturday through Monday, possibly providing relief to firefighters.
Helicopters scooped water from a lake to drop on the fire, while fixed-wing aircraft dropped fire retardant on the hills, as shown in video footage. Flames spread to the water’s edge.
Interstate 5, the major north-south highway in the western United States, was temporarily closed in the mountain pass areas due to smoke-induced poor visibility, according to the California Highway Patrol. However, firefighters were able to suppress enough of the fire to reopen the highway, Marrone said.
As the new fire raged, the two deadly fires that had ravaged Los Angeles since January 7 came under greater control, Cal Fire said.
The Eaton Fire, which scorched 14,021 acres (57 square kilometers) east of Los Angeles, was 91% contained, while the larger Palisades Fire, which consumed 23,448 acres (95 square kilometers) on the west side of Los Angeles, was 68% contained.
Containment measures the percentage of a fire’s perimeter that firefighters have under control.
Since the two fires broke out on January 7, they have burned an area nearly the size of Washington, D.C., killed 28 people, and damaged or destroyed nearly 16,000 structures, Cal Fire said. At one point, 180,000 people were under evacuation orders, according to Los Angeles County officials.
Private forecaster AccuWeather estimates damage and economic losses at over $250 billion.
A series of smaller wildfires have been extinguished or largely brought under control in Southern California over the past two weeks.
