Kincade Fire More Than Half Contained, While Southern California Battles New Fires

Updated Oct. 31, 7:31 a.m.

Fire crews in Sonoma County say they now have the Kincade Fire 60 percent contained as of Thursday morning. The fire has now burned 76,825 acres.

While many who were evacuated have been able to return, Cal Fire Cal Fire said Wednesday evening that 5,788 are people still under evacuation order and 64,000 people are still under an evacuation warning. That's down from nearly 200,000 people last week.

#kincadefire Repopulation Update. More Here: https://t.co/8ymdIjQzbs pic.twitter.com/lqpLoCAtig

— CAL FIRE LNU (@CALFIRELNU) October 31, 2019

The fire has now destroyed 282 structures, including 141 homes. The agency said the northern part of the fire has been difficult to access because of terrain, but firefighters continued to make forward progress overall.

Officials have released an interactive map of the affected areas in Sonoma County, as well as a map of evacuations in Napa County. Lake County is posting evacuation map images here.

A red flag warning ended at 4 p.m. Wednesday. The weather service says winds topped out near 70 mph at the highest elevations in the North Bay.

Meanwhile, around 150,000 people were without power in Northern California Thursday morning as PG&E started another round of shut-offs to try and prevent its equipment form sparking further fires. The utility said last week there were problems with its equipment near where the Kincade Fire started, as well as two fires in the Bay Area this weekend.

Strong winds fanned new fires in Southern California on Thursday, burning homes and forcing residents to flee in a repeat of a frightening scenario already faced by tens of thousands across the state.

The latest blazes erupted in the heavily populated inland region east of Los Angeles as strong, seasonal Santa Ana winds continued to blow with gusts of up to 60 mph predicted to last until the evening before they fade away.

A fast-moving fire spread into the northern neighborhoods of the city of San Bernardino, forcing the evacuation of 490 homes — approximately 1,300 people, the San Bernardino County Fire Department said. Aerial video from a news helicopter showed at least four home burning as the fire grew to 200 acres.

In neighboring Riverside County, evacuation orders were issued for homes around a 75-acre fire in the city of Jurupa Valley. Three residences and two outbuildings were confirmed destroyed, the county's fire department said.

That fire came after another fire Wednesday in Jurupa Valley forced the evacuation of two mobile home parks and a psychiatric nursing care facility, where elderly people wearing face masks and wrapped in blankets were taken out in wheelchairs and gurneys as smoke swirled overhead. The blaze grew to 200 acres in size before its spread was stopped.

"There was one moment when I could see nothing but dark smoke and I was like, 'We're going to die,'" said Qiana McCracken, assistant director of nursing for the Riverside Heights Healthcare Center.

The Santa Anas winds that help create California's most destructive wildfires prompted a brushfire to quickly explode in size after it broke out before dawn Wednesday near the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library between the cities of Simi Valley and Moorpark northwest of Los Angeles.

Officials ordered about 30,000 people to evacuate, although some were being allowed back home Wednesday night as fire crews began to get a handle on the blaze.

Crews remained at the scene through the night to make sure embers would not rekindle more fires after an army of firefighters helped protect the hilltop Reagan museum, which sat like an island in a soot-black sea. There was no damage, library spokeswoman Melissa Giller said.