SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) \u2014 More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in Southern California on Tuesday as a wildfire threatened suburban homes.<\/p>\n
The wind-driven Sandy Fire was reported Monday in the hills above Simi Valley, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday morning, it had consumed more than two square miles (five square kilometers) of dry brush and destroyed at least one home, according to the Ventura County Fire Department.<\/p>\n
The flames were initially pushed by gusts that topped 30 mph (48 kph), but firefighters were aided by calmer winds overnight, said department spokesperson Andrew Dowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve made a lot of progress against this fire with those improved weather conditions,” Dowd said. Crews hoped to make further progress before winds increased again, he said.<\/p>\n
The fire was 5% contained. The cause is under investigation.<\/p>\n
Evacuation orders and warnings were still in place for several neighborhoods in Simi Valley, a city of more than 125,000 people that was shrouded in smoke as aircraft made water drops.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, firefighters were battling a 23-square-mile (59-square-kilometer) blaze on Santa Rosa Island, off the Southern California coast. The fire destroyed a cabin and an equipment shed and forced the evacuation of 11 National Park Service employees.<\/p>\n
There was no containment as of Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
Santa Rosa, a popular destination for camping and hiking, is home to island foxes, spotted skunks and elephant seals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) \u2014 More than 17,000 people were under evacuation orders in Southern California on Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[105160,7,9,8,47,2390,2391,3263,2386,2387,87553,134864],"class_list":["post-323986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-andrew-dowd","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30031-ap-california-state-news-no-weather","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-sandy-fire-simi-valley-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}