Coastal Fire destroys at least 20 homes in Orange County, California, as hundreds are evacuated

A rapidly moving brush fire destroyed at least 20 homes and forced the evacuation of nearly a thousand homes in Orange County, California, on Wednesday in a foreboding sign of the new normal for the region.

The Coastal Fire began Wednesday afternoon at about 2:45 p.m. in the Aliso and Wood Canyons Wilderness Park and quickly grew to about 200 acres, Orange County Fire Authority Assistant Chief of Field Operations TJ McGovern said. The fire then spread into the city of Laguna Niguel and ripped through mansions along hillside streets in one of California’s richest neighbourhoods.

Flames swallowed entire homes and burned through to their interiors in one neighbourhood, while firefighters hosed down nearby houses on the same street hoping to save them, footage from CNN affiliate KCBS/KCAL showed.

One firefighter was injured and hospitalized, McGovern said. About 900 homes are under evacuation orders, Orange County Sheriff Department Capt. Virgil Asuncion said.

Jennifer McCoy, a resident of nearby Laguna Beach, told CNN she first noticed smoke coming from Laguna Niguel around 4:15 p.m. Less than two hours later, the smoke clouds had ballooned even larger, McCoy said.

“I walked down to the shopping centre below and the smoke grew maybe two to three times what it was before,” she said.

The fire was fueled by gusty winds that reached up to 30 mph in the area, according to nearby observations from the National Weather Service. That is in addition to dry conditions from an ongoing severe drought in the entire region, according to the latest US Drought Monitor.

Even so, there was not a particularly high risk of fire on Wednesday, and officials and scientists were taken aback by the speed and intensity of the blaze. Orange County Fire Chief Brian Fennessy said a brush fire like this used to be relatively minor. Not anymore.

“The fuel beds in this county, throughout Southern California, throughout the West, are so dry that a fire like this is going to be more commonplace,” he said.

Despite the efforts of firefighters, the fire still “ran” on first responders, officials said.

“We’re seeing spread in ways that we haven’t before,” Fennessy said. “Five years ago, 10 years ago, a fire like that might have grown to an acre, couple acres” before it was under control. But now, “fire is spreading in this very dry vegetation and taking off,” he said.

Wildfires have historically peaked in the late summer and fall of California. But this is the fourth fire Orange County has seen so far this year, McGovern said.

“We don’t have a fire season. It’s year-round now, and these last four fires that we’ve had just proved it to all of us,” he said.

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Coastal Fire destroys at least 20 homes in Orange County, California, as hundreds are evacuated