Hotter weather expected near blaze that killed 1

Fuel tankers rolled into the parking lot of Golden Valley High so hundreds of fire trucks could quickly gas up and barrel back down vacant streets in Santa Clarita, where officials had ordered the evacuation of 20,000 residents. Fish did not have further details about the incident or the operator but said 60 bulldozers were being used.

To the south, crews stopped the spread of a huge wildfire that destroyed 18 homes in mountains and canyons outside Los Angeles.

Crews working around the clock took advantage of cooler overnight weather as they braced for a spike in daytime temperatures near California’s Big Sur where a wildfire has destroyed 34 homes and killed a bulldozer driver working to contain the blaze.

Pacific Coast Highway remained open Wednesday, but its signature views were marred by a dark haze.

“It’s been a problem each of the last couple of fire seasons, and we continue to see incursions”, said Stanton Florea, a fire information officer for the U.S. Forest Service.

The blaze could crest a ridge and make a run toward campgrounds, lodges and redwoods closer to the shore, officials said. Firefighters are aided by light winds but will contend with another day of triple-digit temperatures.

In Los Angeles County, the lone fatality in the Sand Fire was identified as Robert Bresnick, 67, whose body was found Saturday inside a burned-out vehicle in a driveway, county officials said.

Trends in wildfires, according to Stacey Frederick, a program coordinator at the California Fire Science Consortium, have become more “catastrophic”, meaning that fires are growing larger and causing severe impacts on the environment, such as the amount of tree deaths per acre.

The Soberanes Fire has scorched more than 23,500 acres (9,510 hectares) at the edge of the Los Padres National Forest since breaking out on Friday and was about 10 percent contained on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, rescue crews miraculously saved eight alleged marijuana growers who’d been lost to the inferno for almost a week, according to ABC affiliate KGO-TV.

All parks in and around the Big Sur – Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, Andrew Molera State Park, Pt. Sur Lighthouse Historic Park, Garrapata State Park, and Point Lobos Natural Reserve – are closed.

Tom Torlakson, Superintendent of Public Instruction, has declared a state of emergency for the Sand Fire, and also for the Sobreano Fire in Big Sur, just South of Monterey. The move frees up funding and relaxes regulations to help with the firefight and recovery. No serious injuries were reported, sheriff’s spokesman John Thornburg told the Monterey Herald. Air quality could reach unhealthy levels in areas where there’s smoke, the agency said.

Fire officials and sheriff’s deputies spent several hours searching for the group before rescuing near the fire lines, reports CBS San Francisco.