Hundreds flee homes as high winds feed wildfires in Southern California

County fire spokesman Andrew Dowd said he did not have details on how many structures were damaged.

“There are many houses affected by the fire,” he said. “A fast moving fire.”

In a statement posted on social platform X, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said multiple state agencies “are in close communication to coordinate and support needs in Ventura County.”

As a precaution, electricity was cut off to tens of thousands of people across the state.

The National Weather Service office in Los Angeles replaced its red flag warning of increased fire danger with a rare “especially hazardous condition” label.

With winds predicted between 50 and 100 mph and humidity levels as low as 8 percent, parts of Southern California could face conditions ripe for “extreme and life-threatening” fire behavior by Thursday, the weather service said.

Officials in many counties have urged residents to be alert for rapidly spreading fires, power outages and fallen trees during the recent wildfires. famous Santa Ana winds.

“Residents living in canyons, mountains and foothills should be ready to evacuate as soon as possible,” the LA County Emergency Management Office said in X. Some canyon roads were closed as a precaution and fire departments deployed resources to areas prone to fires.

The Mountain Fire was mapped around 9:15 a.m. Wednesday at just under 250 acres, and by 11:30 a.m. it was five times larger at over 2.3 square miles.

Weather forecaster Bryan Lewis said extreme wind conditions grounded fixed-wing aircraft due to “very dangerous” conditions caused by gusts reaching 61 mph. Pilots could face turbulence that could bring down a plane, he said, and visibility could be limited by the massive smoke cloud.

The Ventura County Fire Department said several people were injured and taken to hospitals. But it was not immediately clear how they were injured. The fire crossed State Route 118 and spread into the Camarillo Heights neighborhood, prompting additional evacuations.

Fire officials in southern Orange County said ash and debris were rising from the Airport Fire that ravaged the area earlier this year due to high winds, but no active fires were reported there Wednesday. Winds wreaked havoc on coastal cities, knocking down tree branches and overturning large garbage bins.

Forecasters also issued red flag warnings through Thursday from California’s central coast to the San Francisco Bay Area and counties to the north.

Winds of up to 30 mph are expected in many areas, with possible gusts reaching 55 mph at mountaintops, according to the weather service office in San Francisco.

More than 20,000 customers were without power in 17 Northern California counties Wednesday morning after Pacific Gas & Electric shut off power to prevent its equipment from starting fires in dry and windy conditions.

Southern California Edison also preemptively shut off power to more than 46,000 customers on Wednesday, including more than 12,000 in Los Angeles County. The company’s website stated that more than 200,000 customers were expected to have their electricity cut off due to the risk.

Utilities in California have begun shutting down power to equipment during high winds and extreme fire danger following a series of large and deadly wildfires sparked by power lines and other infrastructure in recent years.

The Broad Fire was burning in the same area where the Woolsey Fire killed three people and destroyed 1,600 homes in 2018. This fire was ignited by Edison equipment that burned dry grassland and burned across the Santa Monica Mountains to the Malibu coast.