The California coastline just north of Los Angeles was bombarded by wind-driven wildfires on Friday, May 3. The fires threatened a reported 3,000 homes in the area and led to evacuations of residential regions and the California State University at Channel Islands campus.
The "Springs Fire," as the wildfires are being called, took out farm buildings in the area along with some recreational vehicles. No homes were destroyed yet, according to Reuters, as of May 3.
Reuters went on to state in its report that the fire has already taken its toll on "8,000 acres of dry, dense chaparral and brush by late Thursday." This, according to Reuters' source of "fire officials."
"But it has continued to burn very strongly overnight," said Bill Nash, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesperson.
Nash added that the fire officials have determined the number of acres destroyed up to this point remains low, ushering in some hope that the California wildfires will soon be abated.
Thursday morning 10 miles from the Pacific coast, the California wildfires first burst out near the U.S. 101 freeway. Nash explained that the fire was then "[f]anned by hot, dry Santa Ana winds, [and] it reached the Pacific Coast Highway by evening and was burning south toward Malibu," as relayed by Reuters.
The fire was 10 percent contained by late Thursday, according to fire officials, who have battled the California wildfires with more than 900 fighters.
"We expect the air attack to resume as soon as it's light enough for the pilots to see and, at that point, we'll have a better idea of what the fire did overnight," Nash said.
"A smaller blaze east of Los Angeles in Riverside County on Thursday destroyed two houses and damaged two others before firefighters halted its spread, and at least five additional wildfires burned in northern California," Reuters reported.
A video of the California wildfires was posted on Thursday, May 2 and has already — a day later — received nearly 1,000 hits on YouTube. As usual, rather than talking about the California wildfires themselves, the commenters have already started posting wildly non-sequitur rants about the government, religion, same-sex marriage and more.
One commenter viewing the California wildfires video did at least make a statement about the disparity between rich and poor communities in the nation, though there were enough expletives punctuating his diatribe that it is not worth repeating here.
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