A wildfire once again threatens thousands of people in California. Like the accidents two weeks ago, which arrived almost without warning and suddenly, a huge smoke screen hangs over the communities of Castaic and Santa Clarita, in northern Los Angeles County. Named as Hughes, The fire has advanced with fury since it was reported, around 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, eight in the afternoon in Spanish peninsular time. In a few hours, the fire destroyed 3,800 hectares, which has forced the mandatory evacuation of some 31,000 people.
The advance of Hughes It’s being incredibly fast. A spokesperson for the Fire Department has assured that the flames consume about 14 hectares per minute, driven by the Santa Ana winds, which originate in the interior of California and travel between the mountain ranges of the State. In just over six hours, these air currents have caused the area threatened by Hughes will go from covering 20 hectares to almost 4,000.
The authorities have assured in a press conference that the strength of the wind will decrease throughout the afternoon. “We are not too concerned,” said one of the spokespersons for CAL Fire, the state firefighting force that combats this type of fire. The lull in the wind would allow the flames to be fought more effectively. State officials had already warned that strong winds would be felt again this week, prolonging a fire season that has caused at least 25 deaths and destroyed tens of thousands of homes both east and west of Los Angeles.
The State has urgently mobilized eight aircraft from the California National Guard to fight the fire from the air. Twenty firefighter vehicles and heavy machinery have also been directed to the affected region, 65 kilometers north of Los Angeles, to cut off the flames. This event, which takes place on federal lands, has forced the California Government to send 1,100 firefighters to the area. By late afternoon there were close to 4,000, according to the state government.
Meanwhile, evacuation orders followed one another. The first to receive them were the residential neighborhoods northwest of Highway 5, which crosses California from south to north, and which was closed for several hours. Firefighters forced the closure to be reversed so as not to hinder the passage of first responders along the important road. The evacuation was expanded to neighborhoods and neighboring areas in the south, which included several primary schools. The students were transferred to Hart High School, in the town of Santa Clarita, converted into a temporary center to receive displaced people. Classes throughout that region have been suspended this Thursday.
Another issue that worries authorities is the possibility of the fire reaching the Pitchess prison, which would force the evacuation of its 5,000 inmates. Robert Luna, the sheriff of Los Angeles County, had initially assured that the jail was not within the evacuated area but the advance of Hughes finally forced measures to be adopted to protect the prisoners. The sheriff himself later confirmed to the media that about 400 inmates were being moved to a large concrete building where they would take shelter from the flames.
“Two of the three structures we have there are made of this material and our experts tell us that they can be safe,” Luna told CBS. “We have a plan to evacuate them if we have to,” the sheriff said hours later in a press conference.
This new fire happens two weeks after those baptized as Eaton and Palisades will devastate the communities of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Those two fires required the mobilization of a small army of 15,000 firefighters. Despite this, the flames consumed more than 16,000 hectares of the city and caused 25 deaths. Hughes now shows that California’s fire season is not over.
