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Coastal homes burn as hot winds fuel California fires · Best of: Features

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  Coastal homes burn as hot winds fuel California fires. Written by Amy
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  Taxon and Olga R. Rodriguez. This article is being read by an
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  automated voice generated by Everlett. Santa Ana, California, the AP. A
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  fast moving fire fueled by high winds burned at least six homes
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  in Southern California on Friday, engulfing expensive coastal properties and prompting thousands
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  to evacuate. Black smoke, visible from miles away, billowed over tennis courts
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  and swimming pools, while firefighters doused blazing homes in San Juan Capistrano
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  in Orange County. Some homeowners sprayed water on their properties, before heating
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  evacuation orders. Two O firefighters were taken to the hospital with heat
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  related injuries, officials said. Authorities have not said how the blaze, which
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  was less than a square mile as of Friday evening, started. Had
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  these winds been a little bit stronger, a little bit different direction,
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  this could have been a whole lot worse, said San Clemente Mayor
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  Rick Loefler. Howard Hart a council member for San Juan Capistrano, said
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  he and his wife doused their roof with water and moved propane
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  tanks away from their home before they evacuated Friday with a to
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  go bag. Laura Hart hasn't had to evacuate due to fire in
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  the more than five decades she's lived in the community, she said.
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  This doesn't usually happen to us, we usually see it on the
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  news, she said. We always pray to God it's not us, but
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  yeah, It
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  was today. The Norte fires started in the coastal city of San
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  Clemente and wind drove it into San Juan Capistrano. An evacuation shelter
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  has opened in each city. By Friday night about sixteen thousand residents
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  had been ordered to evacuate, said Fire Chief T J. McGovern, of
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  the Orange County Fire Authority. It was one of several fires in
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  the region hit by dry, warm gusts known as Santa Aenas, which
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  blow from the interior and toward the coast. The strongest winds were
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  expected through Friday afternoon, but conditions that increased the fire risk were
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  expected to last through Saturday night, with a heat advisory in effect
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  until eight PM Saturday, on the Orange County and San Diego County
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  coast, the National Weather Service said. Tens of thousands of people in
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  the state are without power after their electricity was turned off. A
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  separate fire by the Marine Corps base, Camp Pendleton, shut down for
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  hours a section of Interstate five that is a major artery connecting
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  Orange County to San Diego, that added hours to commutes throughout Southern
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  California. The coastal cities are surrounded by hillsides. San Juan Capistrano a
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  city of thirty five thousand, is known for horse trails and the
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  historic mission San Juan Capistrano. San Clemente, which is home to sixty
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  two thousand people, is known as a Spanish village by the sea
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  and popular with beachgoers and surfers. The fire is right up on
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  the city, said Victor Cabral, a San Clementic Council member. It's on
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  the perimeter of our homes on the north end. Nine schools were
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  also closed Friday in San Juan Capistrano, the Capistrano Unified School District
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  said.
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  Nearby residents were also on edge as smoke darkened the sky. Wyoming
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  resident Shannon Needham was visiting her mother at her assisted living facility
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  in Dana Point just north of San Clemente when she learned about
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  the fire. The
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  facility director told her that two buses would be on standby in
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  case they needed to evacuate, Needham said. You would hear the fire
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  trucks, you could hear the helicopters and everything above. And it was
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  so smoky, it was just dark smoke, Needham said. Some of California's
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  worst wildfires have been sparked by power equipment and utilities in recent
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  years have begun proactively shutting off power in dry winds. More than
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  one hundred eighteen thousand customers in California were without electricity as of
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  Friday, according to poweroutage.com. The weather service also issued a red flag
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  warning for parts of Central and Northern California through Friday morning, saying
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  any fires would spread rapidly. Rodriguez reported from San Francisco, Associated Press
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  Writer Jamie Ding contributed from Los Angeles.