A brush fire in a suburban community north of Los Angeles was “spreading dangerously fast” and threatening homes on Monday afternoon amid windy conditions, fire officials said.
The fire in Simi Valley, Calif., about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, began at 10:50 a.m. and had grown to 184 acres within 30 minutes, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Officials issued mandatory evacuation orders for a large swath of Simi Valley and warnings for parts of neighboring Thousand Oaks. Just after 12 p.m. on Monday, 23,825 people were under mandatory evacuation orders and 13,115 under warnings, according to a New York Times estimate of the population in the evacuation zones.
Soumya Karlamangla is a Times reporter who covers California. She is based in the Bay Area.
The post Fast-Moving Southern California Fire Forces Immediate Evacuations appeared first on New York Times.
