New US wildfire rips through mountain area north of Los Angeles

Firefighting aircraft and ground crews are battling fast-moving wildfire in the Castaic Lake area north of Los Angeles.

A fast-moving wildfire broke out in the mountains north of Los Angeles and ripped through an estimated 21 square kilometres (8.1 square miles) of trees and brush leading to thousands of evacuation orders for local residents and sending an enormous plume of dark smoke into the sky.

Firefighters said on Wednesday the Hughes Fire in the Castaic Lake area of Los Angeles County – located about 80km (50 miles) north of the city of Los Angeles – prompted evacuation orders to local residents amid the “immediate threat to life” due to the blaze.

An estimated 18,600 people live in the local community where ferocious flames devoured trees and brush on the hillsides around Castaic Lake.

Robert Jensen of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department urged everyone in the fire-affected area to leave immediately and not suffer the same fate as some in the devastating fires that hit the Los Angeles area of Eaton and Palisades, as well as other areas, that killed 28 people and left thousands homeless.

“We’ve seen the devastation caused by people failing to follow those orders in the Palisades and Eaton fires,” Jensen said.