Hurricane-Force Winds Drive Northern California Wildfires; Nearly 200,000 Evacuate

Turbocharged by winds reaching hurricane force, wildfires whipped across Northern California on Monday, burning tens of thousands of acres, driving almost 200,000 people from their homes and seriously injuring a firefighter.

In Southern California, new evacuations on Los Angeles’ Westside were ordered early Monday morning as firefighters get closer to containing the more than 4600 acre fire there.

The Kincade fire north of San Francisco continued to spread, injuring two firefighters, one of whom was airlifted to a hospital with serious burns, said Jonathan Cox, assistant chief of the San Mateo County division of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire.

Fed by sustained winds above 70 mph — category 1 hurricane level — and gusts that topped 100 mph, the fire almost doubled in size from Sunday afternoon to Sunday evening, reaching more than 54,000 acres, and containment had fallen to 5 percent.

Saying "we are deploying every resource available," Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency for not only the fires in the north but also a fire in Los Angeles County that had damaged dozens of structures and injured three firefighters.