A new wildfire near Los Angeles has burned to 8,000 hectares, according to Reuters.

By David Swanson and Daniel Trotta

CASTIC CALIFORNIA (Reuters) – A new wildfire that broke out north of Los Angeles on Wednesday quickly spread to more than 8,000 acres (32 square kilometers), driven by strong winds and dry brush, prompting evacuation orders for more than 19,000 people.

The Hughes fire, about 50 miles (80 km) north of Los Angeles, has further taxed firefighters in the region as they battle two major blazes burning in the metropolitan area.

In a few hours on Wednesday, the new fire grew more than half Eaton (NYSE: ) fire, one of two monsters that ravaged the Los Angeles area.

Much of Southern California remained under a red flag warning for severe fire danger due to strong, dry winds, while officials warned people living in the Castaic Lake area of ​​Los Angeles County faced an “immediate threat to life.”

According to the Los Angeles County Fire Department, 19,000 people, about the same as the entire population of Castaic, were under mandatory evacuation orders. Another 16,000 people were given evacuation notices.

Los Angeles County, the state of California and the US Forest Service said their firefighters are responding. The 700,000-acre (2,800-sq-km) park in the San Gabriel Mountains is completely closed to visitors, the Angeles National Forest said.

About 1,100 firefighters are deployed across Southern California to watch out for the fast-burning blaze, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

Southern California has gone nine months without heavy rain, contributing to dangerous conditions, but some rain was forecast Saturday into Monday, possibly giving firefighters much-needed relief.

Video on KTLA television showed fixed-wing aircraft dropping fire retardant on hillsides while helicopters pumped water out of the lake and dropped it on the blaze. The flames spread to the edge of the water.

Interstate 5, a major north-south highway in the western United States, is closed due to poor visibility due to smoke in mountain passes known as the Grapevine, the California Highway Patrol said.

By the time the new blaze broke out, the two deadliest fires that had ravaged Los Angeles were largely under control, Cal Fire said.

The Eaton Fire, which has burned 14,021 acres (57 square kilometers) east of Los Angeles, is 91 percent contained, and the larger Palisades Fire, which has burned 23,448 acres (95 square kilometers) west of Los Angeles, is 68 percent contained. .

Containment measures the percentage of fire area that firefighters control.

Since they broke out on Jan. 7, the two fires have burned an area the size of Washington, D.C., killed 28 people and damaged or destroyed nearly 16,000 structures, Cal Fire said. At one point, 180,000 people were under evacuation orders, according to Los Angeles County officials.

Private forecaster AccuWeather projects more than $250 billion in damages and economic losses.

A series of small wildfires have been extinguished or contained in Southern California over the past two weeks.