As of Friday evening, more than 30,000 acres burned and the fire was 5% contained.
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Officials say two elderly residents died while trying to escape the fire.
The two were outside their house when they were overcome with smoke, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said at a Friday evening news conference on the fire that has burned almost 47 square miles and forced the evacuation of 1,500 homes near Lake Isabella, a popular recreation area east of Bakersfield.
The so-called Erskine Fire broke out on Thursday at about 4 p.m. PDT (2300 GMT) in the foothills of Kern County, about 42 miles (68 km) northeast of Bakersfield, drawing in hundreds of firefighters to battle the entirely unconfined blaze.
She watched the Erskine Fire sweep through her neighborhood, catching many residents by surprise.
“Once a home is a quarter or more involved, we have to move onto the next one”, Townsend told KTLA.
Approximately 125 people are now at Kernville Elementary School, which is the primary shelter for evacuees.
Conditions were the worst they could have been for a fire, said Geri Jackson, a spokeswoman with the Sequoia National Forest, one of several agencies responding to the blaze. Temperatures were in the high 90s, humidity was in the single digits and low teens, and the area was just coming off a weeklong wind advisory.
A heat wave coupled with nightly wind gusts drove the fires earlier in the week before slightly cooler weather took hold. He urged people to listen to local radio for updates.
Officials say the fire started Thursday and has spread quickly to thousands of acres. “We join all Californians in expressing our gratitude to the courageous firefighters, emergency personnel and volunteers working tirelessly throughout Kern County to help residents and extinguish this fire”, Brown said in a statement.
“There’s so many homes and you have to triage – what can you save and what do you have to just let go”. “You couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face, the smoke was so thick”.
“It’s fully mine now and I just lost it after getting it a year ago”, Rivers told the station. The wildfire that roared across dry brush and trees in the mountains of central California gave residents little time to flee as flames burned homes to the ground, propane tanks exploded and smoke obscured the path to safety.
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The Sherpa Fire in Santa Barbara County forced hundreds to flee their homes north of the city of Santa Barbara last week. The fire was at 19,034 acres. The cause is under investigation.
