LOS ANGELES — A new fire exploded Wednesday north of Castaic, quickly charring 5,000 acres and forcing thousands to flee from their homes amid a month of extreme fire conditions that have plagued Southern California.

The Hughes fire started off of Lake Hughes Road just before 11 a.m. and quickly prompted evacuations orders in and around Lake Castaic, extending toward Interstate 5 on the west and south of Sanberg to the north. More than 19,000 people were ordered to evacuate and another 14,000 people were in areas where evacuation warnings were issued.

Fanned by strong Santa Ana winds, the fire—initially reported at 50 acres—exploded to more than 5,000 acres in under two hours, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Traffic was snarled out of Castaic as residents in hillside communities rushed to escape the advancing flames. On Wednesday afternoon, the blaze forced officials to close a section of the northbound 5 freeway just north of state route 126. The southbound 5 Freeway at Grapevine Road on the southern edge of Kern County was also closed.

Along Pine Crest Place in Castaic, residents rushed to load belongings into their cars to flee as winds continued to push the fire south. One man told KTLA-TV he was planning to stick around as long as possible and was preparing to use a garden hose to spray down his roof to protect it from flying embers.

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles County Sheriff Department patrol car drove through the neighborhood announcing evacuations orders over a loudspeaker.

“I’m just praying our house doesn’t burn down,” another resident told the station.

An employee who picked up the phone at Pilot Travel Center just after noon said they were working to close the truck stop off the 5 Freeway on Castaic Road.

“The sky is black and we’re getting everyone out of the shop,” she said.

Lake Hills Community Church Pastor David Cummings coordinated with his congregants over the phone, helping them find lodging and praying with them as they left their homes. Of the 140 church members that attend Lake Hills Community Church, about half of them live in the area where evacuations have been issued, he said.

He could see the fire and smoke on remote security camera footage from the church that overlooks Castaic Lake.

“We’re keeping in touch with them and people are going over to help them get their needed goods,” Cummings said from his home in Valencia. “We’re providing homes to the other half of congregation. Some are going to their families, but we’re making sure they have a place to stay and all their needs are being met.”

The fire was burning about five miles north of the county’s Castaic jail complex, forcing deputies at one point to move inmates from the Pitchess Detention Center to North County Correctional Facility, another jail in the same complex slightly further from the fire. The jail was listed in the evacuation zone by the afternoon.

It’s unclear how jail officials would carry out an evacuation, if one becomes necessary. For years, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has struggled with a shortage of inmate transport buses, due to an aging fleet that has become increasingly difficult to repair.

By late last year, officials told The Times that only 20 of the department’s 82 buses were operational.

Though the county approved funding for 20 new buses in September 2023, the first did not arrive until December of last year. The remaining buses are slated to arrive every few weeks until the order is expected to be completed in August.

On Wednesday, a department spokeswoman said that jail officials could potentially use state and other local resources, but it was not immediately clear what resources that would entail.

Road closures were enacted at Ridge Route Road at Lake Hughes Road, Ridge Route Road at Templin Highway, Lake Hughes Road at Pine Canyon Road and Dry Gulch Road at San Francisquito Canyon Road, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Elsewhere, Castaic Union School District principals who were at a training meeting when the Hughes brush fire broke out were told to immediately return to their schools.

Northlake Hills Elementary received an evacuation order while the principals returned to their schools and assisted parents and guardians who arrived to pick up their children. Students from Castaic Middle School and Castaic Elementary school were evacuated to a Ralph’s parking lot at Hasley Canyon to wait for their parents, according to California Highway Patrol.

Up to eight helicopters were dropping water on the fire to slow the spread of the flames. Strike teams were also mobilizing to protect homes in the path of the fire.

“There are lots of hillsides,” L.A. County Fire Captain Sheila Kelliher Berkoh said. “It’s very rugged terrain.”

But strong winds in the area proved to be a challenge for firefighters. Wind gusts reached 31 mph Wednesday afternoon in Castaic and were expected to increase over the next several hours, said Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Forecasts show that gusts could reach up to 40 mph in the evening and even faster overnight, according to the weather service.

As classes were letting out at Valencia High on Wednesday afternoon, sheriff’s deputies and campus security personnel began readying the school’s gym as an evacuation center.

Taylor Lincoln and her mother, Danielle, arrived at the campus at 1 p.m. Wednesday with their two dogs, Dakota and Finn, and their cat Lily after being told to leave their home just an hour earlier. Neither had a bag packed and instead fled with a few important papers and the clothes on their backs.

“What this shows me is to be ready next time,” Danielle said. “To be more prepared. It’s reality now.”

It is not clear what sparked the fire. The blaze is burning in the same area that was charred in the Route fire in 2022. That fire, which ignited during a heat wave in late August, burned 5,200 acres and forced evacuations in Castaic.

The Hughes fire was one of two that began Wednesday amid persistent red flag conditions in the region.

In San Diego County, a fire that broke out near Rancho Bernardo and grew to roughly 4 acres and briefly triggered evacuations before its forward progress was stopped.

Red flag fire weather warnings — which began Monday morning across Southern California — will continue through much of Southern California through Friday morning, said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

However, a storm expected to arrive this weekend is expected to bring some moisture to Southern California’s parched landscape. But forecasters have warned it will not end the fire season.

Because the rain is expected to be light, the risk of debris flows in burned areas is low. There’s a chance a thunderstorm could emerge directly over a recently burned area — creating a risk of landslides — but it’s not likely, Kittell said.

Still, Los Angeles city and county officials have started preparing for the rain. Public works in the coming days will install barriers, remove debris and divert runoff from the stormwater system into the sewer system, where it can be treated. Crews are also clearing drains and roadways, placing sandbags to shore up vulnerable infrastructure and preparing debris basins for the incoming storm, officials said Wednesday.

The Palisades fire, which ignited more than two weeks ago, leveled a huge swath of Pacific Palisades burning more than 23,400 acres and destroying at least 6,662 structures, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The blaze was 68% contained as of Wednesday.

The Eaton fire, which charred a devastating path through the Altadena and Pasadena areas, destroying 9,418 structures, was 91% contained as of Wednesday.

“Rains are in the forecast and the threat of mud and debris flow in our fire impacted communities is real,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said during a news conference Wednesday. “We have to be prepared.”

For recently burned areas, Kittell said, the rain could serve as a practice run in preparing for risks that are likely to remain for the next one to two years, after which the risk of debris flows and other landslide risks is substantially lowered.

Recently burned areas are at risk of landslides when subjected to intense rain over a short amount of time. Hillsides are vulnerable to landslides after wildfires because the fires make the soils repellent to water, and instead of being absorbed, rain flows downhill and picks up rocks and debris.

A “landslide” is an all-encompassing term that can describe any movement of rock, dirt or debris downhill. There are various types of landslides, including a mudflow, in which water rushes down with only mud, and is generally less than 15 feet deep.

During a debris flow, water picks up not only mud as it rapidly flows downhill but also rocks, branches, trees and sometimes boulders. This is considered a type of shallow landslide.

Debris flows can be deadly. In January 2018, 23 people died and at least 130 homes were destroyed when a river of mud and rock flowed through coastal Montecito, which had been burned less than a month earlier in the Thomas fire.

Rainfall rates need to be at around half an inch per hour or more to start causing debris flows of significance, Kittell said. Rates that are lower — like a quarter of an inch per hour — are less significant, “maybe some muddy water moving over some roads,” he said.

While meteorologists say the risk of debris flows in the burn areas is low, it’s also very unlikely the rain will snuff out the fire season.

“If we get one more little dry spell, it’ll pretty much negate any benefit from this rain,” Kittell said.

That dry spell may be just around the corner. The longer-term outlook suggests that, on the heels of this storm, there could be more weeks of dry weather going into early February.

Forecasters are confident there will be some rain and mountain snow this weekend. They also expect precipitation to be light — probably less than half an inch for the three-day rain event, from Saturday to Monday.

The most likely forecast would bring as much as half an inch to San Diego, San Clemente and Covina; two-fifths of an inch to downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach; one-third of an inch to Anaheim, Redondo Beach and San Clemente; and one-quarter of an inch to Santa Clarita and Canoga Park.

If those totals are correct, they would snap a record dry streak for downtown Los Angeles. It’s been 262 days, and counting, since downtown L.A. last saw more than one-tenth of an inch of rain on a single day — that was May 5.

The previous record was 253 consecutive days, from Feb. 25 to Nov. 3, 2008.

Downtown L.A. has received almost no rain since the water year began Oct. 1. Only 0.16 of an inch of rain has fallen since then — one of the driest starts to the water year on record. That’s just 3% of the average rainfall for downtown at this point in the water year, which is 6.19 inches. For the entire water year, downtown L.A. averages 14.25 inches of rain.

Elsewhere across Southern California, this has been the driest start to the water year on record.

“We’ve never been in this territory before. We’ve never seen a mid-January with these numbers,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Tardy. The lack of precipitation and the Santa Ana winds — five wind events this month alone — make for a brutal combination.

The forecast timing and totals of the upcoming rain event are still uncertain, Kittell said. Less rain or as much as an inch in some locations is possible. And it could rain at any point from Saturday through Monday, but the best chance is Saturday night into Sunday morning.

There is also a 10% to 20% chance of thunderstorms and, with it, the chance of isolated but brief, heavy rain. With a thunderstorm, “heavy downpours, with rates maybe approaching a half-inch per hour” are possible, Kittell said.

“The vast majority of areas will not see this kind of situation,” he added, but if there are thunderstorms, “most likely we’ll see a spot — or two or three — that do get conditions like this.”

“It is not an atmospheric river,” Tardy said. “It is a cold storm. That is good for our burn scars.”

Residents whose homes back up to charred hillsides can request the county assess their property and the condition of the slope and advise whether any mitigation needs to be done, said Mark Pestrella, the Los Angeles County Public Works director.

He emphasized that Angelenos in burn-scarred areas should use caution during upcoming rain events.

“Let me be clear, if you live in an area and you’re in the home, and there is a slope behind your home that is burned, and it’s maybe 20 feet or more in height, and it is adjacent to the property in any direction, your best bet is not to be in that home when it rains,” Pestrella said.

Residents should also take care not to come into contact with any runoff, which could contain toxic materials, he said.

There is also a moderate risk of small hail across the region. Snow levels could fall to an elevation of 3,500 to 4,500 feet above sea level. Southern California’s ski resorts could get 10 inches of snow, according to the weather service.

Times staff writers Richard Winton, Kevin Baxter and Stacy Perman contributed to this report.

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