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ASSOCIATED PRESS
A fire crew approaches as a wildfire burns in Santa Clarita, Calif. The fire erupted shortly after 2 p.m. Friday next to State Route 14.
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. >> Wildfires tore through tinder-dry brush in California on Friday, forcing evacuations as the southern region sweltered under triple-digit temperatures.
About 100 homes and a trailer park were evacuated after an afternoon fire erupted in the dry brown hills of Santa Clarita, just north of Los Angeles.
“I was running around frantic, making sure everyone was leaving,” trailer park manager Kurtis Bell told KCAL-TV. “And it was just like in the movies, with fire and smoke around.”
Driven by gusty winds, the fire quickly enveloped nearly 4 square miles of brush near a freeway, State Route 14. Some lanes were shut and Metrolink train service in the area was halted.
Smoke from the fire could be seen miles away in downtown Los Angeles.
About 300 firefighters and a dozen aircraft fought the fire. As night fell, the flames were heading away from the more heavily populated areas of Santa Clarita, which has around 180,000 residents, toward the Angeles National Forest.
Nighttime images showed long glowing lines of flame on the ridges, topped by soaring swaths of flames and walls of smoke.
Further south in San Diego County, a 20-acre fire briefly threatened some homes in the Ramona area before firefighters stopped its advance. And a blaze that began Thursday on the Camp Pendleton Marine base was 35 percent contained after burning more than a square mile of brush. No buildings were threatened.
In the steep, rugged canyons near the Central California coast, a fire near Big Sur in Monterey County burned nearly 1 ½ square miles of brush, grass and redwoods. Garrapata State Park south of Carmel was closed for the weekend.
It was heading toward the famously beautiful Big Sur forest and was expected to burn more fiercely at night as moist ocean air retreated and warm, dry air from inland began blowing toward the sea, state fire spokesman Jonathan Pangburn said.
No homes were immediately threatened in the sparsely populated area.
In Northern California, another blaze in Calaveras County was stopped at 57 acres.
The fire danger from gusty winds and low humidity was expected to continue into the weekend in Southern California. The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings through midnight Saturday for mountains in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, and mountains and the south coastal areas of Santa Barbara.
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