A rapidly burning brush fire in a Southern California community swept across more than 10,000 acres in a matter of hours on Wednesday, burning homes and prompting residents to flee as firefighters battled fierce winds that could further fuel the blazes.
In Ventura County, the so-called Mountain fire, which started on Wednesday, had injured several people who were taken to hospitals, the Ventura County Fire Department said. Their conditions were not immediately clear.
The fast-moving blaze caught many residents off guard.
Gail Liacko, who lives in Camarillo, had risen early on Wednesday and went outside in her pajamas to tend to her roses. Their petals had been shredded by the intense wind throughout the night, but Ms. Liacko said she thought nothing of it. She then sat down to a breakfast of homemade hash browns and eggs, prepared by her husband, Michael.
“We were relaxing and I went outside again, and I started smelling smoke and noticed soot on our back patio cushions,” said Ms. Liacko, a real estate agent. “That made me nervous, because that means embers.”
Within the hour, the couple found themselves rushing throughout the ranch-style home that they purchased nine years ago, frantically grabbing photos and important documents. They made it safely to a friend’s house, but there was no power, so they were unable to watch the news.
In the early afternoon, Ms. Liacko, who is in her early 60s, received a text from a neighbor. At least one of the homes in their neighborhood was on fire.
“Oh god, I’m sick to my stomach, this is really real,” she said.
Evacuation orders were in effect for parts of Ventura County, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. It was not clear how many residents had been ordered to evacuate.
Among those who fled were forecasters at the National Weather Service’s office in Oxnard, Calif., which is responsible for warning residents about hazardous weather conditions in Southern California.
The affected area is a rural community dotted with nurseries, farms and horse ranches.
“It’s a very big horse community, everybody knows each other pretty much,” said Kat Winters, 52, the manager of an equine hospital in the area. She and about a dozen staff members had spent the morning transporting horses — some of them rehabilitating from injuries unrelated to the fire and reliant on intravenous fluids — to a safer area.
“We’re a group that tends to want to help each other,” Ms. Winters said of the community. “We got a lot of phone calls from clients wanting to bring trailers to us and were willing and were kind — we’re very fortunate.”
The Mountain fire, which was zero percent contained by Wednesday afternoon, threatened numerous structures, according to fire officials. The Ventura County Fire Department said 140 firefighters, aided by helicopters and other aircraft, were working to contain it while dealing with strong winds that were worsening conditions.
Farther south, along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the Broad fire, which broke out early Wednesday, had grown to 50 acres, officials in Malibu said. The fire, which had affected at least two structures, was 15 percent contained by the afternoon, according to California fire officials. Residents near the fire in Malibu had been ordered to shelter in place, but officials said that evacuation orders were possible.
In Northern California, Pacific Gas & Electric announced a power shut-off on Wednesday to prevent further wildfires in vulnerable areas. Southern California Edison took the same approach, and about 16,000 customers across Los Angeles and Ventura Counties were without power as of Wednesday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks data from utility companies.
The fires were burning as meteorologists warned that weather conditions, which were dry and windy on Wednesday, were ripe for fires to spread rapidly. Los Angeles and Ventura Counties were under red-flag warnings through Friday, and the Weather Service warned residents of a “particularly dangerous situation.”
Parts of Southern California could see damaging wind gusts of up to 80 miles per hour, which could down trees and cause power outages in addition to spreading the flames, the Weather Service said. Parts of Ventura County were also under a dense smoke advisory, meaning that smoke in the area could make driving conditions dangerous.
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