Walls of flame have spurred mass evacuations in Southern California and left two firefighters badly injured as hundreds of thousands of residents endured a second day of power cuts meant to curb the fire risk from dry, gusty weather.
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The latest threats came amid what meteorologists called the strongest onslaught of extreme winds - and lowest humidity levels - yet documented during an already epic California wildfire season ranked as the worst on record in terms of hectares burned.
Fires have scorched more than 16,500 square kilometres - equivalent to the land mass of the state of Hawaii - since the start of the year, with thousands of homes destroyed and 31 lives lost.
Red flag warnings for incendiary weather conditions remained in place across much of California due to winds gusting in excess of 129km/h, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Illustrating the hazards posed by California's latest bout of desert winds, a blaze dubbed the Silverado fire erupted early Monday and spread across 2913 hectares of Orange County by late afternoon, county fire authority spokesman Thanh Nguyen told Reuters.
Utility company Southern California Edison said its equipment is under investigation as a possible source of the blaze.
Some 90,800 residents were ordered evacuated from homes in and around the city of Irvine as the fire raged largely unchecked through drought-parched brush in the canyons and foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains south of Los Angeles, officials said.
No property losses were immediately reported. But two firefighters among some 500 personnel battling the flames with bulldozers and hand tools were hospitalised with severe burns, authorities said.
A second Orange County blaze, the Blueridge fire, later broke out near Yorba Linda and has charred roughly 485 hectares, Nguyen said. Local television news footage showed at least one home gutted by flames.
An estimated 1170 homes were under evacuation orders from that blaze, the county fire authority said on Twitter.
Southern California Edison reported shutting off electricity to 21,000 homes and businesses as a precautionary measure in the face of elevated fire risks posed by dangerous winds.
Hundreds of kilometres away, the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) said it had cut off power to more than 350,000 of its customers for the same reason.
Wind-damaged electrical lines have been implicated in causing dozens of devastating California wildfires in recent years, and utilities have increasingly resorted to such "public safety power shutoffs" to reduce the risk.
Australian Associated Press
