A fire that forced the evacuation of 50,000 people spread through canyons north of Los Angeles on Friday, jumping a freeway and threatening thousands of homes. The authorities ordered all public schools in the Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valleys to be closed on Friday, and the closing of a major freeway snarled rush-hour traffic.
Dangerous winds are forecast to continue on Friday in the Los Angeles area, challenging the hundreds of firefighters deployed to contain the Tick Fire, the National Weather Service said. Winds in the mountains will have gusts between 50 and 60 miles per hour and relative humidity will remain in the single digits.
Peak fire season is far from over in California but the wildfires this year have been less catastrophic as those of the past two years. Fewer than 300 structures have burned in wildfires so far this year compared with more than 23,000 in all of last year. And around 163,000 acres have burned this year, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency, compared with 1.6 million acres in all of 2018.
