Unusually warm temperatures for the start of November combined with strong winds and dry vegetation were increasing the risk of wildfires across a portion of Southern California on Saturday.
The fire threat was highest across parts of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, where a red flag warning was in effect through 6 p.m. Saturday. Areas under the warning include the Santa Monica and Santa Susana Mountains, portions of the San Gabriel Mountains and the Santa Clarita Valley. A red flag warning means that critical fire weather is occurring or imminent.
The National Weather Service warned that if a fire does start, “extreme fire behavior and growth is expected.”
Temperatures as high as 90 degrees were expected in areas around Los Angeles on Saturday. The strongest winds were forecast for the mountains, with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour possible.
The winds, known as Santa Anas, bring warm, dry air from the desert areas of Southern California toward the coast.
Santa Anas are common in the fall, and many of Los Angeles County’s worst wildfires have occurred when they are blowing. The winds on Saturday are expected to be moderate and not nearly as strong as the ones that developed during the fires that ravaged communities in January 2025, according to Mr. Lewis.
“That was a very extreme event,” said Bryan Lewis, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Oxnard. “The orientation of the winds was also different.”
California has had relatively few big wildfires this year, with about a third as many acres burned by this point in the year than is typical. Last month, strong Santa Ana winds helped fan the flames of the Norte fire, which destroyed several homes and prompted evacuation orders for thousands of people in Orange County.
Saturday’s breezy winds and warm temperatures were hitting San Diego and the surrounding mountains and desert areas, but the fire threat was lower there than in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties because those areas received rain in recent weeks.
The winds were expected to linger in Southern California into at least Sunday. Temperatures were expected to remain warm through the start of next week, with afternoon highs in the 80s on Sunday.
A wet storm is expected to bring an end to the heat as early as the end of next week. Computerized models that help meteorologists predict future weather presented a broad time span for when the wet weather could start, with the storm arriving anytime between Thursday and Monday.
“There is a chance of some light rain as early as next Thursday but there is a lot of disagreement in the models,” Mr. Lewis said.
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