California wildfire dangers may be spreading south

A wildfire that burned several homes near Los Angeles may signal that the region is facing the same dangers that have scorched Northern California.

The fire in San Bernardino County erupted Wednesday afternoon, quickly burned several hundred acres and damaged or destroyed at least a dozen homes and outbuildings in the foothills northeast of L.A., fire officials said. Crews used shovels and bulldozers and mounted an air attack to keep the South Fire from the tiny communities of Lytle Creek and Scotland near the Cajon Pass.

Some 600 homes and other buildings were threatened along with power transmission lines, and 1,000 residents were under evacuation orders.

By nightfall, firefighters appeared to have gained the upper hand and few flames were to be seen. But the blaze was worrying because Southern California’s high fire season is typically later in the year when strong, dry Santa Ana winds blast out of the interior and flow toward the coast.

After a few cooler days, the southern region was expected to see a return of hot weather heading into the weekend.

In addition to dangerously dry conditions, the region is faced with firefighting staffing that is increasingly stretched thin, said Lyn Sieliet, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest.

“Some of our firefighters that we normally have on our forests are working on fires in Northern California, or Idaho and Washington,” she told KTLA-TV.

“We don’t have the full staff that we normally do.”

The largest fires in the state and in the nation were in Northern California, where they have burned down small mountain towns and destroyed huge swaths of tinder-dry forest.

The Caldor Fire destroyed some 500 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe, including much of the tiny hamlet of Grizzly Flats.

It was 12% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.

At times the wind-driven fire was burning 1,000 acres of land per hour and on Wednesday it was less than two dozen miles from Lake Tahoe, an alpine vacation and tourist spot that straddles the California-nevada state line.

There weren’t any evacuations in Tahoe, but the fire continued to cast a sickly yellow pall of smoke over the scenic region.

NOAH BERGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS Flames from the French Fire consume a cabin Wednesday on Highway 155 in Sequoia National Forest, Calif. The largest fires in the state and in the nation are in Northern California.