50,000 under evacuation orders as wildfire imperils homes in Los Angeles
International Desk || risingbd.com

More than 50,000 people were under evacuation orders or warnings Wednesday as a huge and fast-moving wildfire swept through rugged mountains north of Los Angeles, but fire officials said a rapid ground and air assault was giving them the upper hand, reports, APnews today.
The Hughes Fire broke out in the late morning and within six hours charred about 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) of trees and brush near Lake Castaic, a popular recreation area about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that are burning for a third weekThough the region was under a red flag warning, winds were not as fast as they had been when those fires broke out, allowing for firefighting aircraft to dump tens of thousands of gallons of fire retardant.
“The situation that we’re in today is very different from the situation we were in 16 days ago,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said Wednesday evening.
More than 31,000 people have been ordered to evacuate, and another 23,000 are under evacuation warnings, LA County Sheriff Robert Luna said.
Parts of Interstate 5 that had been closed reopened Wednesday evening.
A 30-mile (48-kilometer) stretch of the major north-south artery had been closed for emergency vehicles, to move equipment and to prevent accidents due to smoke billowing across the freeway. Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving across the interstate and toward Castaic._Agencies.
Dhaka/Feroz/Nasim