Crews battle California blazes before windstorms return

Crews fought Tuesday to drown, slash and smor wildfires that have incinerated dozens of homes in rrn and Sourn California before returning windstorms can blow m back into furious life.

In California’s wine country, firefighters worked to reinforce fire lines in western Soma County while rushing to shore up eastern side that could be new focus as winds switched direction.

“We’re playing both offense and defense right w on two different sides of fire,” said Jonathan Cox of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Bulldozers carved firebreaks, hand crews attacked hot spots with hoses and shovels, and aircraft painted hillsides with fire retardant.

fire that began last week near town of Geyserville h destroyed 57 homes and damd ar dozen, with 90,000 homes and or buildings considered threatened. About 156,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders.

blaze was 15% contained.

Evacuation orders were downgred to warnings for some 30,000 people in west but new warnings were issued to people in east, with Calistoga in Napa County and Middletown in Lake County — a community bly damd by a 2015 wildfire.

Winds were expected to hit 20 to 30 mph (48 kph) Tuesday, with gusts of up to 50 mph (80 kph) by afteron. winds will peak by midnight before easing, forecasters said.

In south, a brief lull in wind helped crews attacking a blaze that swept through star-studded hills of Los Angeles on Monday. fire roared up a steep hillside near J. Paul Getty Museum in Brentwood section. It destroyed at least eight homes and damd at least six, forcing LeBron James and thousands of ors to flee.

Getty, with its collection of priceless art, was t threatened, fire officials said.

Much of blaze was reduced to smoldering ruins and hot spots but hot, dry Santa Ana winds that could blow m to life and spre embers were predicted beginning Tuesday night. Red flag warnings of extreme fire danger were issued for much of Sourn California into Thursday, with gusts up to 75 mph (120.7 kph) possible in some areas.

With rain and more wind in forecast, coming days could be grim.

flames didn’t discriminate. In wine country, vineyard farmworkers were among those displaced. In Los Angeles, James and former Gov. Arld Schwarzenegger were driven from ir homes along with tens of thousands of ors.

“Man, se LA (fires) are joke,” Los Angeles Lakers star tweeted, using an emoji for word “fires.” ″Crazy night.”

Joann Killeen packed up her important papers, medicine, power bars and her dog Riley and fled as soon as she got an evacuation call from fire department on her cellphone at about 2 a.m. Monday. Her hilly neighborhood is vulnerable to fires and Killeen said she has been evacuated five times in 18 years.

“ most important thing is your life,” she said, “so you always have your go-bag rey to go and you just go. rest of it is just stuff and stuff can be replaced. ”

Utilities in rth and south repeatedly cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers in recent weeks because of concerns that winds would kck down lines and spark fires. Officials warned of yet ar round of safety shut-offs.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said some 1.5 million people will be hit with more shut-offs starting Tuesday. PG&E also has said its transmission lines may have been responsible for Soma County fire.

Sourn California Edison h cut off power to about 800 people as of Monday night and warned that it was considering disconnecting about 400,000 more as winds return midweek.