While some residents in the South Lake area of Kern County, near Bakersfield, returned to their homes Friday, county officials said the strong winds are increasing fire behavior in the nearby Kelso Valley area.
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A contingent of 600 firefighters was battling the blaze with hundreds more en route, according to the government fire tracking website InciWeb. At Least nine communities were under mandatory evacuation orders, and parts of Hwy 178 were closed due to the fire, which was 0 percent contained as of 2:15 p.m. local time Friday (5:15 p.m. ET).
Crews faced a blaze “of epic proportions” as they tried to protect neighbourhoods, Marshall said. Flames already have destroyed five homes and roughly a dozen outbuildings since Sunday.
In addition to firefighters from Kern County, personnel from the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies “large and small” are being sent to assist, Townsend said.
“This has been a massive amount of evacuations, people going door-to-door asking people to leave their homes because it’s unsafe”, said Youngblood.
The so-called Erskine fire flared on Thursday and swiftly grew to to more than 19,000 acres, searing through mountain communities in the southern Sierra Nevada, a region popular with hikers, campers and tourists.
The fire that burned 72 square miles of brush and pine was 42 percent contained after crews carved miles of fire line on its northern and southern edges. About 100 structures have been destroyed so far. There was a chance of thunderstorms that could bring dangerously erratic wind and little rain.
Three of the first responders were hospitalized for smoke inhalation while fighting the fire, officials said.
Several thousand people have been forced to evacuate, and some 1,500 homes are threatened. Cachet Kirby, 22, a resident of Mount Mesa, recounted how she and her neighbors grabbed every belonging and pet they could and fled through thick smoke with flames bearing down the mountains. She and others, exhausted Friday morning, were desperate for information about their homes.
An explosive wildfire that has destroyed 80 homes and is threatening some 1,500 other residences in the central California mountains has grown to more than 12 square miles.
“It was to the point you couldn’t see, you couldn’t breathe”, Kirby said.
Before the acreage was updated, authorities had said the fire was at 8,000 acres earlier Friday morning. These rules apply to residents who live within wildland urban interface areas and require homeowners to clear space around the home to make it harder for the fire to jump to structures.
The blaze broke out amid temperatures in the 90s and low humidity, climbing over at least three ridges into hillside neighborhoods, Townsend said.
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As the Los Angeles Times reports, red flag warnings have been issued in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
