Police arrest man suspected of starting California wildfire

A man was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of starting a fire that burned five homes and prompted evacuation orders for an entire Southern California mountain town.

Brandon N. McGlover, 32, of Temecula was booked on suspicion of setting five fires, including a blaze threatening an estimated 600 homes in the San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles, state fire officials said.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether McGlover had an attorney.

One of the fires erupted Wednesday afternoon and quickly grew to 7 ½-square miles (19 square kilometers), fueled by dry brush and trees in rugged terrain. It was burning in and around San Bernardino National Forest, prompting officials to order evacuations for Idyllwild and surrounding communities, which are home to about 12,000 people.

No injuries were reported but dozens of horses and other animals and several hundred people, including children from summer camps, went to shelters.

William Blodgett of Idyllwild said he couldn’t get home because of the fire and had to wait along with others at a gas station in nearby Mountain Center — until the fire hopped a highway and began to move in his direction.

“We were all peeling out of there as fast as we could,” he told KNBC-TV. “It was apocalyptic.”

The fire is one of several across California amid a statewide heat wave. To the north, in the San Francisco Bay Area, at least one home burned in a fast-moving blaze in Clayton, where houses are spread out around windy roads.

Yosemite Valley, the scenic heart of the national park, was closed at noon Wednesday during the height of tourist season as smoke cast a pall on the region from a fire in the Sierra Nevada.