A new wildfire that broke out north of Los Angeles on Wednesday rapidly spread to more than 8,000 acres (32 square km), fueled by strong winds and dry brush, forcing mandatory evacuation orders for more than 19,000 people.
The Hughes fire, which was about 50 miles (80 km) north of Los Angeles, further taxed firefighters in the region, who managed to bring two major fires burning in the metropolitan area, which was largely under control.
In just a few hours on Wednesday, the new fire grew to more than half the size of the Eaton Fire, one of the two monster conflagrations that have ravaged the Los Angeles area.
Officials warned people in the Castaic Lake area of Los Angeles County that they faced an "immediate threat to life," while much of Southern California remained under a red-flag warning for extreme fire risk due to strong, dry winds.
Some 19,000 people, a number roughly equal to the entire population of the community of Castaic, were under mandatory evacuation orders, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said. Another 16,000 were under evacuation warnings.
Los Angeles County, the state of California, and the US Forest Service said their firefighters were responding. The Angeles National Forest said its entire 700,000-acre (2,800-sq-km) park in the San Gabriel Mountains was closed to visitors.