Crews battling a massive wind-driven Californian wildfire that has torched nearly 800 buildings and charred 230,000 acres are bracing to protect towns near Santa Barbara menaced by flames along the state’s scenic coastline.
The Thomas fire ignited last week and is burning in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, about 100 miles north-west of Los Angeles.
“Fire will continue to threaten the communities of Carpinteria, Summerland, Montecito and surrounding areas,” the California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire) said on Sunday night.
Santa Ana winds and the rugged mountainous terrain have hindered firefighters as they fight the blaze, which has destroyed 790 houses, outbuildings and other structures and left 90,000 homes and businesses without power.
“A lot of these guys (firefighters) have fought a lot of fires in the past few months and are fatigued,” said Fire Captain Steve Concialdi. He added that firefighters from 11 western states were aiding firefighting efforts.
The fire is 10% contained, down from 15% on Saturday, growing by 56,000 acres in one day and covering seven more miles, Concialdi said.
Nearly 5,800 firefighting personnel were working on the blaze, Cal Fire said. The cost of fighting the fire as of Sunday was nearly $34m (£25m), the agency added. It is already the fifth-largest wildfire on record in California.
At the University of California, Santa Barbara, final exams set for this week have been postponed, the chancellor, Henry Yang, said in a letter to the campus community. Air quality and transportation issues, along with power outages that have affected the school’s IT department, forced exams to be delayed until January.
The governor of California, Jerry Brown, told a news conference that drought and climate change meant the state faced a “new reality”, in which lives and property were continually threatened by fire, at a cost of billions of dollars. He added that there was a good chance of seeing “firefighting at Christmas” this year.
It will take “heroic” efforts in the US and abroad, Brown said, to stem climate change. The governor, who strongly criticised Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal in an interview with CBS due to be broadcast on Sunday evening, urged US lawmakers to pay more attention to dealing with natural disasters such as fires, floods and earthquakes.
The president issued a federal proclamation this week that enabled agencies to coordinate relief efforts in southern California.
At least one home in Carpinteria burned down on Sunday, the Santa Barbara County fire department said, and 200,000 people have been evacuated. A 70-year-old woman died on Wednesday in a car accident as she attempted to flee the flames in Ventura County.
The 8,500 firefighters battling the fires that have burned over the past week gained some ground on Saturday. Both the Creek and Rye fires in Los Angeles County were 90% contained by Sunday morning, officials said, while the Skirball fire in Los Angeles was 75% contained. North of San Diego, the 4,100-acre Lilac fire was 60% contained.
A brush fire broke out on Saturday night in the city of Monrovia in Los Angeles County, prompting temporary evacuations, the US forest service said on Twitter. A group of boy scouts camping in the area were among those evacuated, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Crews extinguished the three-acre blaze and no structures were reported damaged, the city of Monrovia said on its website.
