Cool weather offers hope in battling California blaze

Several days of high temperatures have stoked a wildfire in southern California that burned so hot it created its own thunderstorm-like weather systems. However, firefighters hope to gain the upper hand as cooler weather is expected to move into the area after Tuesday. The Line Fire has forced at least 6000 people to leave and threatened thousands of homes and commercial structures as it burns along the edge of the San Bernardino National Forest, about 100km east of Los Angeles. Firefighters have been working in steep terrain and challenging conditions in temperatures above 37C (100 degrees Fahrenheit), limiting their ability to control the blaze, which has created the type of clouds that can spawn gusty winds and lightning strikes. "We're dealing with triple-digit temperatures and hard-to-reach steep areas where there has not been fire in decades, or in recorded history, so all that vegetation has led to significant fuel loads," Cal Fire spokesperson Rick Carhart said. State fire managers said three firefighters had been injured since the blaze was reported on Thursday. An excessive heat warning issued for the Los Angeles area will expire on Tuesday night before giving way to cooler high temperatures. As of Monday evening, the blaze was five per cent contained and had charred about 96 square kilometres of bushland and blanketed the area with a thick cloud of dark smoke. The blaze in one of many wildfires burning across the western US, including in Idaho, Oregon and Nevada, where about 20,000 people have had to flee a fire outside Reno. The Line Fire is one of the most dangerous of many in California, including one north of San Francisco that destroyed more than two dozen homes and another that broke out in Orange County southeast of Los Angeles. Firefighters used bulldozers, helicopters and planes to control a rapidly spreading blaze that broke out near a remote-controlled airplane airport in Orange County. The fire spread to about 8 sq km in only a few hours and had charred more than 21 sq km by Monday night. In Nevada, the uncontained Davis Fire grew to about 26 sq km after igniting on Sunday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of 20,000 people. In Idaho, fire managers were prepared for an active day, with warm, dry and windy conditions and even more challenging conditions on Tuesday. The Boulder and the Lava fires are burning in western Idaho. In central Oregon, firefighters were dealing with a number of blazes that prompted evacuation warnings, including one west of Mount Bachelor on the Deschutes National Forest.