Crews struggle to keep flames from California neighbourhoods
LOS ANGELES — A cooking fire at a homeless encampment sparked a wildfire last week that destroyed six homes in the Bel Air neighbourhood of Los Angeles, authorities said Tuesday, while the fifth-largest wildfire in California history burning northwest of the city kept expanding and kept thousands out of their homes.
They are among a half-dozen fires that flared in Southern California last week and were driven by fiercely gusting Santa Ana winds.
Arson investigators determined that the Bel Air fire near the world-famous Getty museum was started by an illegal fire at a camp near a freeway underpass, city fire Capt. Erik Scott said.
The camp was empty when firefighters found it but people apparently had been sleeping and cooking there for at least several days, he said.