Southern California has only two seasons. Fire and mud. The fires destroy all the plant life holding the soil in place and the rain washes all the mud down the hill sides.
Interesting fact, roughly 4-5,000 California firefighters are minsec inmates that are part of a Department of Corrections program. The fire isn’t that far from three of their prison camps that house around 240 inmates that are trained firefighters including search and rescue.
UPDATE:
Wildfire ripped through like ‘freight train,’ destroying homes near Santa Clarita
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fire-destruction-20160724-snap-story.html
“This is a very serious fire,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich said at a news conference Sunday. “When we tell people to evacuate … they need to evacuate.”
As offshore winds whipped from the southwest, the flames moved northeast toward Soledad Canyon and Acton, where fire officials warned residents to prepare for evacuations.
Years of drought have created unprecedented conditions for fires to intensify and spread rapidly, fire officials said at Sunday’s news conference.