The fire has destroyed 57 homes and is threatening 2,000 more structures.
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Officials said that fire was 93 percent contained Sunday, nine days after it broke out in suburban Santa Clarita and spread into the mountainous Angeles National Forest.
Herrera said firefighters hope to get a better handle on the fire, but it’s still growing.
The blaze took a deadly turn on Tuesday when a bulldozer operator hired by property owners to help battle the flames was killed when his tractor rolled over.
The Soberanes Fire, burning between Big Sur and Carmel, grew to 40,000 acres Sunday, prompting evacuations in portions of the Cachagua and Tassajara communities of Carmel Valley.
The fire, which began on July 22 and is still only 15 percent contained, is burning in a steep, rugged section of Monterey County, roughly 120 miles south of San Francisco. Officials warned that it could be another month before the blaze is completely extinguished.
A fast-moving fire forced people to evacuate at least 300 homes on the path of the blaze in Fresno County, officials say.
Residents of the rural area surrounded by rolling hills told reporters that they scrambled to evacuate with their animals as the wind-driven blaze swept through dry slopes.
“We watched it explode, coming across Old Millerton Road, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger”, Dana Bays told KFSN-TV.
Some 1,038 firefighting personnel were working to mop up, put out hot spots and shore up and extend containment lines, according to the USFS, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. The cause of fire has not been determined as of yet.
The Soberanes fire is proving exceptionally hard to fight due to an unfortunate combination of geography-it’s burning through steep, forested ridges of the Carmel highlands 120 miles south of San Francisco-and unusual weather patterns. For the protection of AP and its licensors, content may not be copied, altered or redistributed in any form. Doing so may result in civil and/or criminal penalties.
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None of the fires have been among the worst or largest wildfires the state has seen in recent years, but they’re part of a dire global warming-fueled trend toward larger, more frequent and intense wildfires.
