Wildfire erupts in Orange County, forcing evacuations

A brush fire that erupted Monday afternoon in the hills of Orange County in Southern California exploded to nearly 2,000 acres within a few hours, prompting evacuation orders for nearby communities as the blaze burned uncontrolled.

Known as the Airport fire, it began just before 1:30 p.m. about 15 miles east of Irvine, California, near an airport for remote-controlled model airplanes. Officials have ordered evacuations in parts of Trabuco Canyon, a community in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, and have recommended evacuations for surrounding neighborhoods as well.

The fire broke out during a prolonged heat wave that has pushed temperatures in many parts of Southern California into the triple digits in recent days. A fire in the San Bernardino Mountains that began Thursday, about 55 miles northeast of Trabuco Canyon, has swelled to threaten more than 33,000 structures and is only 5% contained.

In Trabuco Canyon, temperatures reached about 98 degrees Monday, above normal for early September, said Samantha Zuber, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego. Wind speeds were about 15 mph, she said.

The winds are expected to slow into the evening, but overnight temperatures will remain unusually high, unlikely to drop below 70 degrees, she said. Similar conditions have been fueling wildfires in the state all summer. “Unfortunately, temperatures won’t cool that much,” Zuber said.

She said that temperatures in the fire zone would begin to drop Tuesday — a high of 95 is expected — before a significant cool down, which is forecast to start Wednesday and continue for the rest of the week.

The blaze started in a rural area where narrow roads and single-family homes are tucked in the midst of steep, brushy canyons. It’s a popular area for hiking and riding motorcycles. The canyons quickly give way to gated communities full of expensive homes that offer close access to nature. The area also features strip malls and wide, well-maintained streets.

Eric Nelson, the president of Trabuco Flyers, which oversees a flying field for remote-controlled airplanes, said the fire appeared to have begun on a neighboring property. So far, the winds are blowing away from the flying field, where on weekends as many as 120 people gather to fly remote-controlled planes.

“Let’s keep praying the wind doesn’t shift and start coming out of the east — then we’ll be in trouble,” said Nelson, who added that high temperatures had kept people away from the field in recent days. “My goodness, we’ve had quite a hot spell.”

Farther north, another major blaze has prompted thousands of evacuations in northern Nevada and was problematic enough to force the Harris-Walz campaign to cancel a scheduled rally Monday. Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota had been scheduled to headline an event in Reno, Nevada, but instead spoke to volunteers at a local field office and met with emergency workers.

Walz kept his short remarks focused on the fire, but the Nevada Republican Party argued on social platform X that the campaign was “using a current wildfire crisis as a political ploy.”

California has already had a difficult start to the fire season after two consecutive wet winters led to heavy vegetation growth across the state. Scorching temperatures this summer have parched the bounty of grasses and brush, which have turned into abundant dry fuel.

The Park fire, which ignited July 24 in Chico, California, quickly ballooned into the fourth-largest fire in California history, spreading across more than 429,000 acres. That fire alone has burned more acres than all of the fires in California did last year combined, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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