A new wildfire in California grew to nearly 9,000 acres yesterday, sending thousands of people fleeing and further stretching resources in a state dealing with a spate of wildfires this season.
The so-called Maria Fire erupted on Thursday evening in Ventura County, 65 miles northwest of Los Angeles, and burned out of control through the night, driven by high winds and threatening 1,800 structures.
Hundreds of firefighters backed by air tankers and helicopters battled the blaze, which was zero per cent contained as of yesterday morning.
Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said fire crews had been thwarted by someone flying a drone late on Thursday.
“Our firefighting aerial efforts were hampered by someone flying ... a small drone apparently looking at photography of the fire,” he told reporters. “This created quite a dangerous situation. It’s not only illegal but it hampers our firefighting efforts.”
Another fire in the county, the Easy Fire, which broke out on Wednesday and came dangerously close to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in the Simi Valley, was almost fully contained yesterday.
Up in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, there was more good news as authorities reported that the Kincade Fire, the largest in the state this season, was 65% contained.
The multiple fires that have erupted throughout the state in the last two weeks prompted California Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a statewide emergency this week.
The wildfires have been fed by bone-dry conditions, especially in the lower part of the state which has not had rainfall for months.
A rare extreme red flag warning issued for the Los Angeles area this week was lifted on Thursday but the National Weather Service (NWS) warned that so-called Santa Ana winds could still wreak havoc through the evening.
In a bid to reduce the risk of wildfires, the state’s largest utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), has been shutting off power to millions of customers in northern and central California, prompting outrage.
PG&E acknowledged last week that the Kincade Fire, a blaze that charred 77,000 acres (31,160 hectares) of Sonoma County wine country north of San Francisco, started last week near a damaged PG&E transmission tower at about the time a high-voltage line on that tower malfunctioned.
That blaze has burned more than 77,700 acres and destroyed at least 349 homes and other structures, but was listed as 65% contained as of Thursday evening.
The blazes come as California is still reeling from the aftermath of the most destructive wildfire in state history – the Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise and killed 86 people last year.
Similar blazes in northern California, including in the Napa and Sonoma wine regions, killed 44 people in 2017 and destroyed thousands of structures.
There have been no fatalities linked to this year’s fires thus far.
This long-exposure photo shows the Maria fire as it races across a hillside in Santa Paula, California.
