Closures as of Tuesday included Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, Andrew Molera State Park and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, among others.
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Meanwhile, firefighters were doing some back burns in the area of Soledad Canyon on Tuesday to eliminate the threat of fire from unburned fuel, such as brush, between residents’ homes and scorched areas, Judy of the Forest Service said.
As the fire edged away from populated areas and crept farther into the adjoining Angeles National Forest, evacuation orders were lifted on Monday night for most of the estimated 20,000 displaced residents.
High temperatures, low humidity and strong winds were making it hard for firefighters to contain the blaze over the weekend, officials said. Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction, is acting governor until Gov. Jerry Brown and several other top officials who would normally replace him are all at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Most of the homes have been erected in recent decades.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says no one has been injured, but the fire has destroyed six homes and forced evacuations.
Towering columns of smoke could be seen from miles away, signposting the dangers of the Sand Fire, named for the area’s Sand Canyon.
Fanned by scorching heat, windy conditions and a five-year drought, a pair of California wildfires has burned tens of thousands of acres in southern and central parts of the state.
“So, our home luckily still stands but to see the flames the way that they did, they wiped out the whole valley”, he said.
Lane Leavitt, who trains stunt actors and specializes in setting people on fire for movies and television, was relieved when he returned home Monday evening to find his home and business fully intact.
“We set some backfires overnight in some of our areas of concern and this gave us space to contain the fire”.
The park shutdowns came as a fire that started Friday just north of Big Sur grew to 78 square kilometres but was just 10 per cent contained. A handful of neighborhoods remain evacuated Wednesday morning.
Representatives from the U.S. Forest Service, county fire personnel and county sheriff’s officials were organizing response efforts, according to the release. About 770 large animals were in the care of Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control.
About 300 miles to the north, a smaller fire raging since Friday between Big Sur and the scenic coastal town of Carmel-by-the-Sea continued to threaten some 1,650 properties after destroying 20 homes on Sunday.
“Firefighters expect to continue to make good progress”, officials said in a news release Monday.
Assistant Chief Ed Winter says firefighters tried to get Bresnick and a woman living at the home in Santa Clarita to evacuate Saturday as the flames approached but they refused.
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Some neighborhoods in Santa Clarita, population about 200,000, remained off limits Tuesday because of the fire.
