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"At this time," said Brian Rice, president of the California Professional Firefighters, which represents more than 30,000 firefighters and paramedics. "Some of them are doing their own homes in ruins."
Nearly 60 percent of California's 33 million acres of forestland are owned by the federal government, according to a 2018 report by the California Legislative Analyst's Office. An additional 25 percent of the state's privately owned forests, and about 14 percent are owned by industrial owners like timber companies. State and local governments own just 3 percent of the state's forests.
One of two major fires in Southern California, called the Woolsey, has also surged, doubling in size overnight to 70,000 acres and forcing the evacuation of about 250,000 people, according to state officials. It was 0 percent closed as of Saturday morning. Fire crews in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties were fighting on steep, hilly terrain that made controlling the blaze difficult.
"Our firefighters have been experiencing some extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they've never seen in their lives," said Daryl Osby, chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. "We just ended the summer hottest on record. We have fuels that are in the drought state right now. This is the sixth year of seven years of drought in this region. "
Mr. Osby said that they were expected to pick up on Sunday and last through Tuesday, further complicating firefighting efforts in the region, and that they were currently planning to release or order Highway 101, one of the region's major thruways.
Scott StJohn, 42, an entrepreneur and fitness company owner, was evacuated from his home in Malibu on Friday morning with his family, believing that "there was no way the way was going to be all the way down to the beach."
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