Rapidly spreading fire in Los Angeles expands from 500 acres to over 10,000 acres within hours, prompting evacuation alerts for 50,000 residents

A rapidly spreading fire located to the north of Los Angeles has grown to over 10,000 acres in a short period of time, with fire tornadoes materializing and 50,000 local residents receiving new evacuation alerts.

This blaze, known as the Hughes Fire, started in the hills north of Santa Clarita close to Lake Castaic, and saw its size surge from 500 acres to 10,176 acres on Wednesday.

Approximately 31,000 individuals have been issued mandatory evacuation orders, while an additional 23,000 have been advised to be prepared to leave their residences at short notice.

Footage from the edge of the blaze reveals swirling tornadoes of fire are beginning to take shape as entire hills are covered in fiery red flames. 

Massive clouds of smoke are billowing over entire neighborhoods as helicopters dump gallons of water from the skies in an effort to contain the blaze.

Weary residents across southern California and Los Angeles have been battling fires for three weeks after scores of prime real estate from the Pacific Palisades to Malibu and Pasadena were razed last week. 

Though the region was under a red flag warning, winds were not as fast as they had been when those fires broke out, allowing for firefighting aircraft to dump tens of thousands of gallons of fire retardant. 

‘The situation that we´re in today is very different from the situation we were in 16 days ago,’ Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said Wednesday evening.

As the inferno spreads, Governor Gavin Newsom has assured Californians that state resources have been deployed to control the situation. 

‘State resources have been deployed to the Hughes Fire in the Angeles National Forest to assist in the federal response,’ he said on X.

‘We will continue to monitor the situation closely and provide the federal government with whatever it needs to extinguish this fire.’

Joe Tyler, director of Cal Fire, said: ‘This fire had a robust response today, and as you can see behind us, the responders are doing great work to try to contain this fire. Certainly, we are not out of the woods yet.’

No lives have been lost or structures reported damaged in the blaze, which is being fought by some 4,000 exhausted firefighters, Marrone added. 

He also said that one of their priorities would be making sure crews, who have been battling the Hughes fire since it began, had time to eat and rest, according to the New York Times. 

‘Firefighting is dirty and dangerous work, but we’ve got to rotate our crews through so we can have a lot of production and efficiency throughout the night,’ he said. 

At the time it began, the Hughes fire quickly ripped through nearly 8 square miles of trees and brush, sending up an enormous plume of dark smoke near Lake Castaic, a popular recreation area about 40 miles from the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that are burning for a third week.

Offramps along Interstate 5, a major north-south artery, were closed as flames raced along hilltops and down into rugged canyons. 

Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving south toward more populated foothill communities in Castaic, home to about 18,000 people.

At least three schools were evacuated as a precaution, the California Highway Patrol said.

Meanwhile, to the south, Los Angeles officials were preparing for potential rain even as some residents were allowed to return to the charred Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas. Gusty weather was expected to last through Thursday.

‘We’re going to see another round of critical fire conditions across Southern California,’ Todd Hall, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Wednesday morning. ‘At this point, it sounds like a broken record.’

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order to expedite cleanup efforts in burn areas and mitigate the environmental impacts of fire-related pollutants. 

The Eaton Fire that scorched 14,021 acres east of Los Angeles has been 91 percent contained, while the larger Palisades Fire, which has consumed 23,448 acres on the west side of Los Angeles, stood at 68 percent contained on Wednesday.

Since the two fires broke out on January 7, they have burned an area nearly the size of Washington, D.C., killed 28 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 16,000 structures, Cal Fire said. 

The cause of the Hughes fire in under investigation.