Southern Calif. fire spreads in hours from 50 acres to tens of thousands

‘Unbelievably fast’: Southern Calif. fire spreads in hours from 50 acres to tens of thousands

A brush fire raced through Southern California Monday night into Tuesday morning with ferocious speed, spreading from about 50 acres to an estimated 26,000 acres in less than seven hours. The fire, named the Thomas Fire, began in a canyon north of the city of Santa Paula, about 65 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It reached the northern edge of Ventura,  a city with a population of more than 100,000, by 2 a.m. Pacific time.

One person was killed in a car crash while trying to evacuate from the fires, Ventura County Fire chief Mark Lorenzen said in a news conference, according to CNN. The fire also destroyed two structures, though the nature of the structures could not be confirmed, Ventura County Fire Sgt. Eric Buschow told The Washington Post.

Authorities have given evacuation notices to “well over 30,000″ residents in the cities of Santa Paula and Ventura. More than 7,500 homes are under mandatory evacuation, authorities said in a statement released at 1:50 a.m. local time, which described the fire as “out of control.”

“Approximately 500 firefighters are on scene or en route,” the statement added.

“The prospects for containment are not good,” Lorenzen said in a news conference early Tuesday morning, adding that there is no possibility of using aircraft at night to help contain the fire.

Four helicopters were making water drops to fight the fire but by 9:30 p.m. local time but were grounded after conditions were deemed unsafe for them to fly at night.

“It’s always difficult and somewhat dangerous to fly at night, so depending on different conditions and the geographic challenges is how they evaluate whether or not they can operate at night,” Ventura County firefighter Jason Hodge told the Los Angeles Times.