A brush fire in a suburban community north of Los Angeles was “spreading dangerously fast” and threatening homes on Monday afternoon amid windy conditions, fire officials said.
The fire in Simi Valley, Calif., about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, began just before 11 a.m. and had grown to 836 acres by 3:30 p.m., according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Officials issued mandatory evacuation orders for a large swath of Simi Valley and warnings for parts of neighboring Thousand Oaks. Just after 12 p.m. on Monday, 23,825 people were under mandatory evacuation orders and 13,115 under warnings, according to a New York Times estimate of the population in the evacuation zones.
Approximately 500 firefighters were battling flames, and the effort included ground crews along with three air tankers and six helicopters, according to Cal Fire.
The blaze, called the Sandy fire, broke out on a warm, breezy day in Simi Valley. Scott Dettorre, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department, said that the large-scale evacuations were prompted by offshore winds that were fanning the flames.
Santa Ana winds from the northeast were blowing between 10 to 20 miles per hour with gusts of up to 35 m.p.h. on Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service. The winds were coming from the northeast, but expected to shift to the southeast in the late afternoon, according to N.W.S.
“In the long game, it should push the fire back onto itself, but for the hour or so when the winds are trying to shift, it can be challenging for firefighters because the winds can be erratic,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
The Sandy fire is burning in the burn scar from the Woolsey fire that grew to nearly 100,000 acres and destroyed 1,643 structures across Ventura and Los Angeles counties in 2018.
The Woolsey fire eliminated heavy brush that had built up over years, while the Sandy fire is fueled by new growth, particularly dry grasses, said Andy VanSciver, a spokesman for the Ventura County Fire Department.
The fire was burning near several schools in Simi Valley. Officials had canceled outdoor activities and were keeping children inside classrooms because of poor air quality, according to the Simi Valley Unified School District. At least two campuses, Crestview Elementary School and Mountain View Elementary School, had their students and staff evacuated to Simi Valley High School, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.
The Ronald Reagan Library, on a hilltop in Simi Valley, closed early on Monday because of the fire. The museum isn’t in an evacuation zone but closed “out of an abundance of caution,” said Melissa Giller, a museum spokeswoman.
