FARIA: Firefighters battled several intense wind-driven wildfires on Friday that have swept across densely populated Southern California, destroying at least 500 structures and chasing 190,000 people from their homes over the past five days.

More than 5,700 firefighters from across California and the region worked to stop the spread of six large wildfires and other smaller blazes that erupted since Monday, ranging from Los Angeles up the Pacific coast to Santa Barbara County and stoked by fierce westward Santa Ana winds.

Firefighters and helicopters sprayed and dumped bucketloads of water and fire retardant on flames against a hellish backdrop of flaming mountains and walls of smoke as the blaze hopscotched over highways and railroad tracks and torched rows of houses.

The raging fires have forced the evacuation of about 190,000 people and threatened 23,000 homes as of late on Thursday, CAL FIRE said on Twitter.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s second largest with more than 640,000 students, said it closed more than a quarter of its nearly 1,100 schools for the second day in a row on Friday. The University of California Santa Barbara cancelled Friday classes as well.

The Thomas Fire northwest of Los Angeles grew to 115,000 acres from 96,000 acres and dest­royed 439 structures, officials said. More than 2,600 firefighters from as far away as Portland, Oregon, and Nevada were battling the blaze, which was 5-per cent contained.

North of San Diego, another blaze called the Lilac Fire grew from 10 acres to 4,100 acres (1,659 hectares) in just a few hours on Thursday, CAL FIRE said, prompting Governor Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency for San Diego County.

The blaze destroyed 20 structures and prompted evacuations and road closures. Propane tanks under several houses exploded from the heat, sounding like bombs.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2017