LOS ANGELES – Hundreds of people were ordered to evacuate from a fast-moving wildfire burning through steep terrain near California’s central coast on Saturday, after searing temperatures and parched land fuelled dozens of blazes in the US West and Southwest.
The so-called Alamo Fire, feeding on bone-dry vegetation, nearly tripled in size on Saturday to about 19,000 acres (7700 hectares) on the border between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. More than 1000 firefighters have been fighting the blaze that started on Thursday and was 10-percent contained as of Saturday afternoon, officials said.
There were 40 uncontained large US wildfires on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.
One of the largest was the Truckee Fire in Nevada, which was nearly 100,000 acres (40,460 hectares) in size, according to the InciWeb tracking service. There have been no immediate reports of fire-related deaths.
No major injuries have been reported in California’s Alamo fire, according to Santa Barbara County spokesperson Gina DePinto. She said authorities are working to evacuate people from the blaze, aiming to stop it from reaching wineries to the south and electric transmission lines to the southeast.
Heavy rainfall in parts of the West over the winter and spring helped delay the onset of the fire season, but also spurred the growth of dense vegetation that has dried out and become highly combustible in summertime heat.
