WRIGHTWOOD, Calif. — Firefighters battling three large wildfires in the mountains east of Los Angeles took advantage of cooler temperatures as they slowly gained an advantage, but not before dozens of homes were destroyed and thousands of people were forced to evacuate.
California is now facing the height of its wildfire season, but has already seen nearly three times as much land burned as in all of 2023.
Wildfires have threatened tens of thousands of homes and other structures across Southern California since they intensified during a triple-digit heat wave over the weekend.
No deaths have been reported, but at least a dozen people, mostly firefighters, have been treated for injuries, mostly heat-related, officials said.
In the small community of Wrightwood, about 90 minutes from Los Angeles, authorities implored residents to flee as the Bridge Fire grew in size late Tuesday.
The fire has burned more than a dozen homes in the area.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, said the fire was moving at extraordinary speed through complex terrain, likely giving residents less time to evacuate than usual and surprising even the most experienced firefighters.
The Bridge Fire “had to climb mountainsides, burn downslope, jump across valleys, burn across new ridges, and then burn back downslope at least two more times in one effective burn period,” he said Wednesday.
The flames are burning through dense vegetation that grew after two consecutive wet winters that included snowstorms that caused tree limbs to break, leaving behind a large amount of fuel for the fire, said Jed Gaines, operations section chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE).
