25 million people in California face ‘life-threatening’ fire warning

VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT, CONNOR NELSON, CHRISTINA NOREN, CNN

By Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — Powerful winds that fueled fast-moving wildfires across Southern California this week are expected to pick up momentum on Thursday –– worsening conditions for firefighters who are already battling limited visibility to save lives.

The National Weather Service issued a Red Flag warning until 6 p.m. Thursday – which is used to describe “extreme and life-threatening fire behavior.” The warning is expected to affect 25 million people in Southern California and the greater San Francisco Bay area.

Earlier this week, forecasters warned conditions appear concerningly similar to those responsible for “some of the worst fires in Southern California history.”

All schools in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, have been closed through Friday due to the fires.

Here’s the latest:

• Ventura County’s Mountain Fire expanded in size on Wednesday after powerful Santa Ana winds came into contact with very dry air. The blaze is now moving at a “dangerous rate of spread,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said at a news conference Wednesday, burning agricultural fields and hedgerows in the area.
• At least 800 firefighters and 58 fire engines have been deployed to contain the Mountain Fire on South Mountain. It has been unsafe for helicopters to operate, Fire Captain Trevor Johnson said in a news conference.
• Footage obtained by CNN from the town of Camarillo Hills shows orange embers searing through trees and homes late Wednesday, with structures barely recognizable and many burned to the ground.
• Officials haven’t determined the number of structures that have been damaged. In a statement announcing Federal Emergency Management Agency support for fire rescuers, California Gov. Gavin Newsom estimated roughly 3,500 homes, structures, and businesses have been affected by the Mountain Fire.
• At least two people have been transported to the hospital with possible smoke inhalation, fire officials said.
• As of Thursday morning, California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection estimated the Mountain Fire has burned at 14,148 acres with 0% containment. More than 14,000 people remain under evacuation orders, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.

A scramble to evacuate

Christina Noren, 50, and her husband Paul Boutin, 62, quickly evacuated from their home in Camarillo Heights around 12 p.m. Wednesday.

They only had time to grab their dog, their laptops, some clothes, toothbrushes and Boutin’s thyroid medication.

Boutin has been in remission from thyroid cancer since August, but just had a related surgery last week and the couple was anxious about Boutin inhaling any smoke. They chose to evacuate to a hotel in Pismo Beach, more than 100 miles away, rather than a closer evacuation center.

“You know, the last thing that he needs is to be breathing smoke for the next 2 or 3 days,” said Noren.

Noren said she started to get worried about the smoke in the sky around 11:00 a.m. Within 45 minutes, police and fire officials were knocking on doors in her neighborhood and telling people to leave immediately.

“And they were really like, get the hell out of there now,” said Noren.

Noren was an artist and has collected art for 30+ years. Her collection includes artists like Catherine Opie, Nathan Oliveira and Brent Estabrook — as well as some of her own pieces from 30 years ago. She had to leave everything behind when she evacuated.

“These are large scale works. These are 8-foot by 8-foot sculptures, 8-foot by 8-foot paintings. This is not stuff you dump in the Prius,” said Noren.

She said she’ll “have a good cry and a good scream” if her collection is gone.

“A lot of them I made with my own hands. So I’m a lot more worried than Paul is,” said Noren.

‘The Los Angeles reality’

A brush fire in Malibu is still burning – but its forward progress was stopped after it burned at least two structures and shut down the Pacific Coast Highway for part of Wednesday.

“It was extremely windy here today. The winds were blowing so much. The fire happened because of the high winds,” Komal Kapoor, a visiting professor at Pepperdine University, told CNN, explaining that she received an alert from the National Weather Service with a “red flag warning” of high winds in Ventura County and Los Angeles counties.

Kapoor added that fires are part of the “Los Angeles reality” and all professors could do was follow guidance from emergency officials and reassure students.

Two structures caught on fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department said, and there were no reported injuries.

According to the weather service office in Los Angeles, conditions at the time of the fire showed north-northwest wind gusts up to 51 mph and humidity at 11%.

Wildfires threat to power providers

Wildfires have scorched more than 1,015,138 acres throughout the state of California so far this year, compared to 332,822 acres by this time last year, according to Cal Fire.

The threat of fire starts is so severe that two of the state’s power providers cut off power to thousands of Californians to prevent electrical equipment from sparking flames.

Power equipment can start fires, particularly when conditions are as extreme as forecast through Thursday. PG&E had to pay $45 million in a settlement for its equipment’s role in starting the Dixie Fire – California’s second largest in history – in 2011.

More than 11,000 Southern California Edison customers across five counties had power shut off Wednesday morning. Nearly 250,000 customers could be impacted, according to the utility’s website.

Power shutoffs affected thousands of PG&E customers by Wednesday morning and will continue through Thursday, according to the utility’s website.

CNN’s Taylor Galgano, Taylor Romine, Emma Tucker, Robert Shackelford, Chris Boyette, and Mary Gilbert contributed to this report.

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