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Key Points
- The Hughes Fire has broken out in California, burning more than 32 square kilometres.
- The blaze forced the evacuation of 19,000 people due to what authorities called extreme fire risk.
- Firefighters have so far contained 91 per cent of the Eaton Fire and 68 per cent of the Palisades Fire.
A new wildfire that broke out north of Los Angeles on Wednesday rapidly spread to more than 32 square kilometres of land, fuelled by strong winds and dry brush, forcing mandatory evacuation orders for more than 19,000 people.
The Hughes fire, about 80km north of Los Angeles, is further straining firefighters in the region, who have managed to bring two major fires burning in the metropolitan area largely under control.
In just a few hours on Wednesday, the new fire grew to more than half the size of the Eaton fire, one of the two monster conflagrations that have ravaged the Los Angeles area.
Officials warned people in the Castaic Lake area of Los Angeles County that they faced 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.
Some 19,000 people, a number roughly equal to the entire population of the community of Castaic, were under mandatory evacuation orders, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. Another 16,000 were under evacuation warnings.
Los Angeles County, the state of California, and the United States Forest Service said their firefighters were responding.
As a result of the red-flag warning, some 1,100 firefighters were deployed around Southern California in anticipation of fast-moving fires, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) 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 giving firefighters much-needed relief.
Helicopters scooped water out of a lake to drop on the fire while fixed-wing aircraft dropped fire retardant on the hills, a video on KTLA television showed. Flames spread to the water’s edge.
Interstate 5, the major north-south highway in the western US, was closed in the mountain pass areas known as the Grapevine due to poor visibility from the smoke, the California Highway Patrol said.
While the new fire raged, Cal Fire said the two deadly fires that had ravaged Los Angeles were brought under greater control.
The Eaton fire that scorched 57 sq km east of Los Angeles was 91 per cent contained, while the larger Palisades fire, which consumed 95 sq km on the west side of Los Angeles, stood at 68 per cent contained.
Since the two fires broke out on 7 January, they have burned an area nearly the size of Washington, DC, 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.
