A major highway in Southern California was closed Wednesday after a brush fire started and grew quickly on the first day of extreme heat, officials said.
The Highway Fire, burning near Castaic, north of Los Angeles, has grown to more than 4,600 acres, and Interstate 5 was closed in both directions Wednesday night. By 8:30 a.m. local time on Thursday, fire officials said the fire had spread to 5,208 acres.
The fire is only 12% contained so far and one building has been destroyed. Officials said about 550 buildings were threatened by the fire.
The cause of the fire is still unknown.
The fire broke out west of Interstate 5 around noon Wednesday, Capt. Los Angeles County Fire Captain Sheila Kelliher-Berkoh said it happened while much of California was under an extreme heat warning.
A temperature of 109 degrees was recorded in the area just before 2 p.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.
“We’re actually in the middle of a nine-to-10-day period of extreme heat,” Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief Tom Ewald said at a news conference.
“If you can imagine wearing heavy fire gear, carrying packages, pulling hose, swinging equipment – the people out there are just beating it,” he said.
Fire officials said Thursday that extreme heat, low humidity and high terrain “will continue to pose the greatest challenge to firefighters today,” creating a potentially dangerous combination of “flow growth.” big, high flow and short distance.”
Eight of the firefighters suffered heat-related injuries, and six were taken to hospitals, Ewald said Wednesday. As of Thursday, they have all been released from the hospital and are doing well, NBC Los Angeles reported.
The release was ordered at Paradise Ranch Apartments, south of Templin Highway, north of Lake Hughes Road, east of the Golden Freeway, west of Castaic Lagoon and north of Northlake Elementary School.
Two Red Cross shelters have been set up at West Ranch and Frazier Mountain high schools.
More than 350 firefighters from Los Angeles County and the US Forest Service, as well as 15 aircraft, were battling the blaze Wednesday, Kelliher-Berkoh said. Between 100 and 200 homes were evacuated, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Lt. Brandon Barclay on Wednesday.
Interstate 5, a major highway between Los Angeles and northern communities like Bakersfield, has been slowly reopening since Wednesday.
The highway between Lake Hughes Road and Templin Highway has reopened to one northbound lane and two southbound lanes, the California Department of Transportation said earlier Thursday.
More than 35 million people were under extreme heat warnings Wednesday across the West and Southwest and much of California, as well as parts of Nevada and Arizona, according to the weather service.
Another fire in Southern California, the Border Fire 32, has caused the closure of the Tecate border crossing, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
The fire in San Diego County, which started shortly after 2 p.m., has burned more than 4,200 acres and was 5% contained by 10 p.m., fire officials said. More than 400 homes were ordered to be evacuated, emergency officials said.
A heat wave that may break the heat in Southern California is forecast to continue into next week, according to the weather service.
CORRECTION (September 1, 2022, 7:45 a.m. ET). An earlier version of this article misstated where the Fire started. It broke west of Interstate 5, not east.