LOS ANGELES — A fast-moving fire in south Orange County has burned multiple homes in the San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano areas, as fierce Santa Ana winds fueled fire danger from Malibu to Camp Pendleton.

At noon a new blaze ignited in the bushy foothills south of San Juan Capistrano. Dubbed the Norte fire, the conflagration quickly scorched 250 acres, prompting evacuation orders as multiple helicopters worked quickly to try to douse the flames, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. News video showed at least one building burning. Around the same time, a vegetation fire ignited along the 5 Freeway near San Onofre, leading to the closure of north and southbound lanes from Vandergrift Boulevard to Basilone Road, according to Cal Fire.

They are the latest incidents in what’s become a busy 24 hours for firefighters in Southern California.

Overnight, the crescent moon was the only source of light across homes nestled beneath Boney Mountain in Ventura County and across much of the Santa Monica Mountains. By morning, firefighting aircraft were back in the air dropping water on the Bryson fire in Malibu while the sound of generators purchased by outage-weary residents and business owners buzzed through the canyons.

Friday is forecast to bring the most powerful gusts during the ongoing red flag warning, providing the first major test of whether city and county agencies have applied lessons learned from the devastation of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

On Friday morning, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone touted the “great progress” crews made on the Bryson fire near Encinal Canyon overnight. The 146-acre blaze was 17% contained by morning, with only a limited number of residents affected by evacuation orders.

Hundreds of thousands of Southern California residents, on the other hand, were impacted by public safety power outages implemented by Southern California Edison to lessen the risk of electrical equipment sparking a fire.

In Los Angeles County alone, more than 53,000 households had lost power by noon as temperatures climbed into the 90s.

“Temperatures will shoot up quickly this morning and stay quite warm well into the evening, especially where breezy winds continue, increasing the duration of the heat, which is particularly concerning for those without air conditioning or that spend significant time outdoors,” wrote the National Weather Service in its Los Angeles area forecast discussion.

Rose Garcia, a Simi Valley parent, said parents at Sycamore Elementary School received a text at 6 a.m. Friday saying that the school would remain open during outages, although not all classrooms can be run off of generators.

“My son has asthma so with no air conditioning and no air filtration, I wasn’t having him there,” she said, adding that “a power outage used to be considered an emergency but is now just accepted.”

A red-flag warning and heat advisory remain in effect for parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through 8 p.m. Saturday.

Temperatures along the coast are of key concern for fires. Leo Carrillo State Park in Malibu had already reached a toasty 93 degrees by 11 a.m., according to the weather service.

“This morning through this afternoon is our most critical period of time during this red-flag event: Strong winds and very dry conditions will continue to cause fire starts to spread rapidly,” said Kevin McGowan, director of the county office of emergency management. “We’re urging everyone to remain vigilant and ready to act.”

On Friday morning, 414 personnel and multiple aerial resources were assigned to the Bryson fire, with a focus on ensuring flames do not jump over Encinal Canyon Road, which would place a much larger hillside area under threat, Marrone said. The blaze erupted shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday, sparking evacuation orders for the Encinal Canyon area near Trancas Canyon and placing a larger swath of Malibu under an evacuation warning.

The Henderson fire ignited around 2:30 p.m. Thursday in a dry, brushy area of Camp Pendleton, prompting a temporary closure of the 5 Freeway. The blaze continued to spread Friday with flames crossing containment lines on the northwest side increasing the total area burned to 2,080, according to Cal Fire.

Wind speeds Friday are forecast to be about 10 mph greater than on Thursday, said meteorologist Mike Wofford with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. Downed trees and power lines are also a danger. Peak winds are expected in the 50 to 70 mph range through early afternoon before gradually weakening.

In Newbury Park, a shopping center on Reino Road was among the thousands of Edison customers impacted by power shutoffs. The nearby Ragamuffin Coffee Roasters, however, was packed with customers as owners had purchased a generator in the hopes of avoiding future business closures. At a local Autozone there was a run on gas cans as people rushed to purchase fuel to power their generators.

“I live a mile that way and my power is off,” a FedEx worker said, pointing off in the distance. “My sister lives two miles away and her power is on. It is so random.”

SCE spokesperson Dianne Castro said there are many factors the utility considers when deciding when and where to implement outages, noting that these policies are being constantly revised after prior fire incidents.

“There’s about 2,000 weather stations and then 200 wildfire cameras, and these crews who are on the ground actively patrolling the circuits and looking at real-time weather and ... conditions,” she said.

From Jan. 2 to Jan. 17, the peak devastation window of last year’s fire season in Southern California, SCE cut power to 363,196 total customers across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Kern, San Diego, and Ventura counties.

L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said the department has augmented its patrol officers in areas impacted by evacuations and public safety power outages.

“If you think you’re going to come in and take advantage of these poor folks who have been asked to evacuate or don’t have power,” he said, “you’re going to run into probably deputies who aren’t in uniform and who are just out there specifically looking for that challenge.”

Mayor Karen Bass said Thursday that Los Angeles fire officials were pre-deploying personnel and resources to potential fire hot spots including the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica Mountains and Hollywood in anticipation of the red-flag conditions.

Reviews of the Los Angeles Fire Department response to the January 2025 firestorm revealed critical failures to pre-stage resources. In particular, fire officials drew heat for failing to pre-deploy engines to Pacific Palisades, despite forecasters warning of extreme fire weather conditions.

Marrone said Friday that “the county family is always improving” and that agencies are implementing changes recommend in after-action reports of last year’s wildfires.

“The Jan. 7, 2025, wildfires were very unique in that we had two wildfire-initiated community conflagrations eight hours apart,” he said. “No other jurisdiction in the United States ever fought the fires that we fought on Jan. 7.”

Thursday’s red-flag alert was one step below the rare “particularly dangerous situation” warning that was issued in advance of the Palisades fire. Nonetheless, there was a noted effort to ensure fire equipment and personnel are ready to respond to any potential ignitions in high-fire-hazard zones across the county.

In addition to the pre-deployed L.A. Fire teams, the L.A. County Fire Department has bolstered its on-duty staff by about 100 personnel, and additional firefighting crews have been sent to Southern California by the governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

On Friday, Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath highlighted the $77 million and 44 new positions funneled into the county’s Office of Emergency Management. A review of the Eaton fire found county agencies struggled to monitor rapidly unfolding events and operated with unclear policies for sending evacuation orders.

“We will continue to make those investments,” said Horvath. “We will continue to support our departments and make sure that emergency preparedness remains a top priority for the county.”

—Rong-Gong Lin II and Hannah Fry contributed to this report.

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