LOS ANGELES » Authorities ordered the evacuation of a university and a neighborhood today as gusting winds drove a raging wildfire toward a Southern California community and hampered efforts by hundreds of firefighters battling another foothill blaze that destroyed several homes, authorities said.

The evacuations came after a blaze broke out during morning rush hour along U.S. 101 in the Camarillo area about 50 miles west of Los Angeles. The orders included the campus of California State University, Channel Islands.

Flames quickly moved down slopes toward subdivisions, according to the Ventura County Fire Department. More than a thousand acres were charred, with no containment. Several RVs in a parking lot were destroyed.

More than 200 firefighters with help from aircraft dropping water and retardant worked to protect dozens of homes around Camarillo Springs Golf Course.

Santa Ana winds with gusts up to 30 mph were sending plumes of smoke over the homes and strawberry fields to the south. The vegetation-withering dry winds out of the northeast caused humidity levels in the coastal community to plunge from 80 percent to single digits in less than an hour.

About 100 miles to the east, four residences burned in a grass fire that prompted the evacuation of an elementary school in Jurupa Valley, said Theresa Williams, a spokeswoman for CalFire.

Meanwhile, crews made progress overnight on a 4½-square-mile fire burning in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains north of Banning, but winds returned in the morning, Riverside County fire spokeswoman Jody Hagemann said.

The fire that burned a home on Wednesday was 40 percent contained with only sporadic flames showing, but renewed winds gusting to 40 mph could halt that progress.

The blaze was being fought by aircraft and nearly 700 firefighters.

Hundreds of people briefly evacuated homes.

A stand from firefighters came too late for Joe Kiener, 53, who lost the house he had lived in since his mother bought it in the 1970s.

Kiener was home on a lunch break when he stepped outside to check on his barking dog and saw heavy smoke approaching. He took the dog and started to leave just as a deputy arrived to tell him to evacuate, but it wasn’t easy.

“When I left I went around the corner and I got engulfed in a big cloud of smoke,” said Kiener.

He got out safely, but the next time he saw the house was in a cellphone picture sent by his neighbor. The roof was on fire, and he knew it would be destroyed, but he shrugged off the loss.

In Northern California, crews were able to hold the line against two wind-whipped wildfires, but one in Tehama County continued to grow.

The Panther Fire north of the town of Butte Meadows had spread to 1,700 acres with no containment. The fire was burning in a remote area of brush and timber and is not threatening any homes, state fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said.

A fire in Sonoma County that has burned 125 acres did not grow overnight. Full containment on the Yellow Fire was expected later in the day, Berlant said.

Two smaller fires totaling 165 acres were burning in Glenn and Butte counties. Berlant said crews were also able to hold the line against one of those fires, the 55-acre Cedar Fire in Butte County, but wind was expected to be a factor.

Weather forecasts called for red flag conditions of extreme fire danger in canyons, foothills and mountain passes because of the winds, coupled with hot, dry weather.

Several other small fires were reported in widely separated areas near freeways.