California braces for high winds as wildfires continue

Fire crews in Southern California are rushing to contain devastating wildfires, with dry desert winds expected to intensify over the weekend.

High winds are expected Saturday night. Over the past week, six major wildfires have killed at least one person, destroyed hundreds of buildings, forced more than 200,000 people to flee and choked the air across much of the region.

California Governor Jerry Brown will survey the destruction of the state’s devastating wildfires on Saturday.

Forecasters predict wind gusts to become more intense by Saturday night, challenging the 8,700 firefighters who have been battling the fast-moving blazes for five days. 

‘As we know, when a tornado hits the Midwest, there’s no stopping it. When a hurricane hits the East Coast, there’s no stopping it. When Santa Ana winds come in, there’s no stopping them,’ said Captain Kendal Bortisser of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention.

A hillside glows with embers as the Thomas fire burns through Los Padres National Forest near Ojai, California on Friday night

Naval Aircrewman 1st Class Justin Greene, assigned to the ‘Merlins’ of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 3, searches for hotspots from an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter to support California fire fighting efforts

Grateful residents place a thank-you banner for firefighters on a grass patch in Ojai, California on Friday

This map shows the areas of active wildfires northwest of Los Angeles as of Saturday morning. Fire crews are bracing for high winds over the weekend, with forecasts calling for gusts up to 40mph Saturday and up to 50mph Sunday

Firefighters gained ground Friday, and some of the earliest evacuees who fled from flames Monday were being allowed to return home. 

Yet new fires were popping up, and danger persisted. The vegetation is bone dry, and there’s been hardly any rainfall.

Winds were expected to gusts up to 40mph Saturday and up to 50mph Sunday in the Los Angeles and Ventura areas, the National Weather Service said.

The winds ‘potentially put the fires that are currently burning at risk of spreading,’ said Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for CAL FIRE.

Brown plans to meet at noon with residents and officials in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, where officials said the largest of the blazes, the Thomas Fire, has charred 148,000 acres and destroyed 537 structures.

‘We’re going to recover. Have no doubt about that,’ the governor said on Twitter on Friday.

The fire has also claimed its first life, officials said. A 70-year-old woman died after she crashed her car fleeing the Thomas Fire (pictured) in Ventura on Wednesday. She died of head trauma, inhaling smoke, and thermal injuries, officials said

A resident cries as the Thomas Fire approaches the town of La Conchita early Thursday morning

The fire is continuing to spread, although Thursday’s high winds have eased off, making firefighting easier. Shane Winton sprays water on a friend’s property as the Thomas Fire approaches in the town of La Conchita

The fires have taken people by surprise over a large swath of Southern California since the biggest fire broke out Monday evening in Ventura County.

There, the only death attributed to the fires so far involved a 70-year-old woman who was found dead in a wrecked car on a designated evacuation route in the small city of Santa Paula.

Virginia Pesola, 70, was found dead in a car in Ventura on Wednesday. Officials said she had been fleeing the Thomas Fire – the oldest and biggest of the blazes – when she died.

Three people were also burned trying to escape a fast-moving fire that started Thursday 50 miles north of San Diego that overran a mobile home retirement community and a race horse training facility.

John Knapp did not initially believe a sheriff deputy’s order to leave when he first spotted the fire outside his home in the Rancho Monserate Country Club.

‘I thought he was full of bologna, but once I saw the flames and the smoke I thought that maybe he’s right,’ Knapp said.

After leaving, he watched from a nearby highway for five hours as the community went up in smoke.

A man bicycles past bluffs burned in the Thomas Fire on Thursday in La Conchita, California

 Fire crews search for hot spots among destroyed homes in the Rancho Monserate Country Club community on Friday

A general view shows dozens of mobile homes consumed by the Lilac wildfire in Fallbrook

Fire ravaged vehicles remain parked in front of burnt out homes off Highway 33 north of Ojai, which was surrounded by the ever-growing fires

This photo was posted on Twitter by astronaut Randy Bresnik, who wrote: ‘I was asked this evening if we can see the SoCal fires from space. Yes Faith, unfortunately we can. May the Santa Ana [winds] die down soon’

More than a third of the community’s 213 mobile homes burned as fire zigzagged along a hillside, skipping some streets and razing others. 

On one street, all 24 mobile homes were gone, with only hulls of cars and twisted metal remaining. 

Knapp was sure he had seen his house burn on the television news, so he was expecting the worst when he snuck past a police barricade to witness the damage and was surprised to find it still standing.

Others who managed to get out with little more than the clothes on their backs were not as fortunate.

Dick Marsala was too overwhelmed to speak as he searched through the smoldering remnants of his house, trying to find his wallet. A framed photo of him playing golf was still hanging on a blackened wall.

‘I’ll be darned,’ he said, his eyes tearing up as he put on sunglasses

The fires reached San Diego County on Thursday, with the Lilac Fire tearing through retirement homes and ranches in Bonsall as it crept toward Oceanside

Shelby Hope walks through the remains of the Padilla Ranch near Sylmar, which was ravaged by the Creek Fire, on Wednesday. The ranch owners were forced to flee for their lives, and were unable to free their horses – 29 of which perished

Tom Metier, whose home was spared, zipped through the mobile home park in a golf cart, giving bad news to some of the neighbors who called him.

‘It’s really horrible to see some of these little streets look like a moonscape,’ he told a friend whose home was reduced to black rubble.

The flames that tore through Fallbrook, the self-proclaimed ‘Avocado Capital of the World,’ also hit hard in nearby town of Bonsall, where an estimated 30 to 40 elite thoroughbreds perished when the flames swept into barns at the San Luis Rey Training Facility.

Pandemonium broke out as hundreds of horses were set free to prevent them from burning in their stables. They nearly stampeded trainer Kim Marrs as she rescued a horse named Spirit World.

Marrs said it was devastating to see the remains of once regal animals.

‘It’s pretty apocalyptic,’ she said. ‘When you touch them it’s just ash.’