Southern California wildfire destroys 132 structures

CAMARILLO, California — A Southern California wildfire has destroyed 132 structures in less than two days, fire officials said Thursday.

The fire started Wednesday morning in Ventura County and has grown to nearly 80 square kilometers.

About 10,000 people remained under evacuation orders Thursday as the Mountain Fire continued to threaten about 3,500 structures in suburban neighborhoods, ranches and agricultural areas around Camarillo in Ventura County.

The fire's cause has not been determined.

County fire officials said crews working in steep terrain with support from water-dropping helicopters were focusing on protecting homes on hillsides along the fire's northeast edge near the city of Santa Paula, home to more than 30,000 people.

Kelly Barton watched as firefighters sifted through the charred rubble of her parents' ranch home of 20 years in the hills of Camarillo with a view of the Pacific Ocean.

"This was their forever retirement home," Barton said Thursday. "Now in their 70s, they have to start over."

Her father returned to the house an hour after evacuating Wednesday to find it destroyed. He was able to move four of their vintage cars to safety but two — including a Chevy Nova he'd had since he was 18 — burned to "toast," Barton said.

The National Weather Service said a red flag warning, which indicates conditions for high fire danger, would remain in effect until 6 p.m. Winds were expected to decrease significantly but humidity levels will remain critically low, forecasters said.

Officials in several Southern California counties urged residents to watch for fast-spreading blazes, power outages and downed trees during the latest round of notorious Santa Ana winds.

Santa Anas are dry, warm and gusty northeast winds that blow from the interior of Southern California toward the coast and offshore, moving in the opposite direction of the normal onshore flow that carries moist air from the Pacific. They typically occur during the fall months and continue through winter and into early spring.

The Mountain Fire was burning in a region that has seen some of California's most destructive fires over the years. The fire swiftly grew from about 1.2 square kilometers to more than 41 square kilometers in little more than five hours on Wednesday. By Thursday afternoon it was mapped at nearly 80 square kilometers and Governor Gavin Newsom had proclaimed a state of emergency in the county.

Across the country in New Jersey, firefighters were battling blazes in the parched New Jersey Pinelands on Thursday, where they say conditions are the driest they have been in at least 120 years.

A forest fire in the Philadelphia suburb of Evesham forced the evacuation of a dozen homes on Thursday and was threatening dozens of other residences. The blaze was discovered Thursday morning and had burned completely uncontained across less than 2 square kilometers by early afternoon, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said.

Crews were battling another forest fire Thursday about an hour away in Jackson Township that was discovered a day earlier.

And late Thursday afternoon, a third, smaller blaze broke out in Glassboro, another Philadelphia suburb. Few details were immediately available on that fire.

No injuries or property damage have been reported in any of the fires.