An explosive new wildfire erupted north of Los Angeles on Wednesday, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and setting nerves jangling in an area still reeling from two deadly blazes.
Ferocious flames devoured hillsides near Castaic Lake, spreading rapidly to cover more than 9,400 acres in just a few hours.
The fire was fanned by strong, dry Santa Ana winds racing through the area, pushing a vast pall of smoke and embers ahead of the firefront.
Evacuations were ordered for 31,000 people around the lake, which sits 56 kilometres north of Los Angeles, and close to the city of Santa Clarita.
“I’m just praying that our house doesn’t burn down,” one man told broadcaster KTLA as he packed his car.
Kalliope Sidnam, 14, her father, Chief Sidnam, brother, Flynn Sidnam, 8, and mother Melissa Sidnam, wait in a parking lot, at a Red Cross evacuation centre at Hart High School as firefighters and aircraft battle the Hughes Fire near Castaic Lake, north of Santa Clarita, California, US on January 22. — Reuters
The Hughes Fire came as the greater Los Angeles area was on edge after two enormous fires tore through America’s second largest metropolis, killing more than two dozen people and wreaking billions of dollars of devastation.
As California faces a massive rebuild, President Donald Trump repeated his false claim that the state was improperly diverting water away from the site of the emergency, threatening to withhold federal funds as a result.
“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down into their system” from the north of the state, Trump said in an interview on Fox News aired on Wednesday evening.
Los Angeles’s water supplies are mainly fed via aqueducts and canals originating from entirely separate river basins further east.
‘Dynamic’ situation
Around 4,000 firefighting personnel, backed up by aircraft and bulldozers, surged to the new blaze, a massive response that Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said was paying dividends.
“The situation remains dynamic, and the fire remains a difficult fire to contain, although we are getting the upper hand,” he told an evening press conference.
“We are going to be on scene all night long, gaining more perimeter control, making sure that we can put out the hot spots, and then have enough resources and staging so that if we do have a flare up, we can move those resources to the fire line.”
The hopeful tone came after a nervous day for the region, where many people remained glued to television coverage of the aerial firefight — scenes that became common during lengthy battles to contain the Eaton and Palisades Fires.
Helicopters dropped water and planes dumped tens of thousands of fire retardant, laying down lines of red intended to corral the flames and pinch the firefront.
