Some residents allowed to return

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Most of the roughly 20,000 evacuees forced out by a wildfire were cleared to go home, but firefighters still faced huge work Tuesday in taming an expansive wildfire in mountains north of Los Angeles.

The fire’s size increased modestly overnight to 150.22 sq. km but containment more than doubled to 25 per cent. Authorities, however, remained cautious.

“We’re not really out of the woods,” said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Justin Correll. “We’re not ready to relax. There’s still a lot of firefighting to do.”

A week of triple-digit temperatures awaited the nearly 3,000 firefighters battling flames in rugged terrain between Los Angeles and suburban Santa Clarita, where many homes are tucked into canyon lands.

Residents of two neighbourhoods still under threat had to remain out of their homes, the U.S. Forest Service said.

Eighteen residences have been destroyed in the blaze that started Friday afternoon and quickly tore through drought-ravaged brush that hadn’t burned in decades.

Laurent Lacore was among those who evacuated on Saturday, the last of his family of four to leave as the fire bore down on his house.

“The flames were right behind our backyard,” he said.

Lacore was also among many who were told they could return on Sunday only to learn on arriving at the scene that new winds and new flames meant more days in a hard-to-find hotel room.

He returned Monday night delighted to find the house and everything around it had been saved, and could see a line of red fire retardant nearby where a helicopter had stopped the fire’s approach.

“Everything is fine,” he said. “Even all of the trees are there.”

Firefighters saved about 2,000 homes in the fire’s first three days, Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief John Tripp said.

Some 480 km to the northwest a blaze in the Big Sur region of the Central Coast destroyed 20 homes and threatened 1,650 others as it burned 77.7 sq. km by Tuesday morning, though firefighters made gains Monday and had it 10 per cent contained.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of death of a man whose body was found in a car in the fire zone Saturday.

DAVID McNEW/GETTY IMAGES A burned pirate sculpture stands in a charred landscape in Santa Clarita, Calif. Triple-digit temperatures and dry conditions are fuelling the wildfire and is only 10 per cent contained.