Firefighters in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, were battling three fires on Monday night, even after the authorities lifted an evacuation order for thousands of residents.
The blaze that prompted the order, the Juniper fire, began just before 11:30 a.m. on Monday and swiftly burned almost 700 acres, according to Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency. The order was issued in the afternoon and affected just over 5,000 residents, based on a New York Times analysis of the evacuation zones and LandScan population data.
The order was lifted shortly before 9 p.m. by Cal Fire. But only 30 percent of the fire, which was burning in an unincorporated area about 70 miles southeast of central Los Angeles, had been contained.
The cause of the Jupiter fire was under investigation. Fire crews would continue working through the night to extinguish it, and evacuation warnings for the blaze, indicating a lower alert level, would remain in place overnight, Cal Fire said.
A second blaze fire in Riverside County, the Wolf fire, began on Sunday and had burned more than 2,400 acres by Monday evening. The authorities reported that it was 30 percent contained.
Another blaze that began on Sunday, the Mindy fire, was mostly contained after burning about 100 acres, and all evacuation orders associated with it have been lifted.
Summer is typically the worst season for wildfires in California, as the atmosphere dries up and temperatures rise. Though it can be difficult to predict wildfire activity, forecasters have already seen signs that this could be an especially intense year, with plenty of dry grass to fuel potential fires.
In Southern California, conditions were especially dry this winter, setting the stage for more and larger fires this summer. By September, officials predict fire activity across most of the state will be above normal this year.
On average, about 1.4 million acres burn a year in California, but there have been varying totals in recent years. More than 4.3 million acres burned in 2020, when dry lightning — lightning without nearby rainfall — sparked an outbreak of wildfires across Northern California, but in 2022 and 2023, only about 300,000 acres burned each year.
The Juniper fire started as residents of Los Angeles County were still reeling from the devastating wildfires in January. The Eaton fire destroyed more than 9,400 structures, mostly in the community of Altadena in Los Angeles County, and burned about 14,000 acres. To the west, the Palisades fire destroyed more than 6,800 structures in Malibu and the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, and burned more than 23,000 acres.
A total of 30 people died in the Eaton and Palisades fires, making the fire event the second-deadliest in California history. The Camp fire killed 85 people in Northern California in 2018, more than any other single wildfire in the state’s history, according to Cal Fire.
Amy Graff, John Keefe and Jesus Jiménez and Francesca Regalado contributed reporting.
Sopan Deb is a Times reporter covering breaking news and culture.
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on transportation. He is based in Washington.
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