The forest fire caused the most damage in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, with 150 structures destroyed. A fire official said that hundreds of other homes were likely to be burned down.
At the foot of San Gabriel Mountain, 72 km from Los Angeles, 30 houses were on fire. Mayor Eric Garcetti said the strong winds have caused dangerous conditions, forcing more than 150,000 people to evacuate.
The fires in Ventura County spread rapidly on the evening of December 4. By the morning of December 5, the first of at least three fires in southern California had spread.
The forest fire caused the two expressways to stop operating for several hours and huge columns of smoke rose across the Los Angeles area.
There are currently no reports on the number of people killed in the forest fire. Two people were seriously injured in the fire in San Bernardino County.
The forest fire in Ventura County spread to nearly 207km2 in a few hours due to strong winds of more than 96 km/h from Santa Ana.
The latest forest fires came just eight weeks after a series of historic forest fires in California killed 44 people and destroyed 8,900 homes and other buildings.
Dry plant carpets and too little rainfall while strong Santa Ana winds increase the risk of forest fires. There has been almost no rain in the area in the past 6 months. Like the October fires in Napa and Sonoma counties, the latest have occurred in suburban areas.
