A firefighter died Thursday while battling the Thomas fire as authorities braced for new powerful winds that could pose threats to homes in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Officials said a combination of Santa Ana and sundowner winds will hit the area from Thursday through Sunday, bringing new dangers to a fire that now ranks as the fourth-largest in the state’s modern history.

A 24-year-old Santa Ana woman was sentenced to three years in prison on Monday for fleeing the scene after fatally hitting a pedestrian and then falsely reporting to her insurance company that her vehicle had been vandalized.

In a hopeful sign, thousands of firefighters were making headway Tuesday against the vast Thomas Fire in Southern California, with winds decreasing to 15 to 25 mph and the Santa Ana wind event beginning to wane. The blaze, which is larger than New York City, was about 25% contained Tuesday, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.

LOS ANGELES — The winds aren’t changing for Southern California’s wildfires yet.
The fifth largest blaze in state history was threatening thousands of homes as it churned through coastal mountains amid persistently dangerous weather conditions.

A single-engine plane with four people aboard crashed into a Clairemont home and burst into flames Saturday, killing two passengers and destroying the house, authorities said.

Firefighters are struggling to contain the biggest of six blazes burning in southern California, with the Thomas Fire slipping from 15% containment to 10% Sunday. Covering 230,000 acres, the Thomas Fire is now the fifth largest blaze in modern California history.

Hundreds of elite thoroughbred race horses sprinted away from flames Thursday as one of California’s major wildfires tore through a training center in San Diego County. Not all made it.

Firefighters battled several intense wind-driven wildfires early on Friday across densely populated Southern California that have destroyed at least 500 structures and chased tens of thousands of people from their homes over the past five days.

Insured losses from wildfires that raged through California in October topped $9.4 billion, the state’s insurance commissioner said on Wednesday.

Firefighters trying to keep blazes from spreading throughout the Los Angeles area are now facing hurricane-force winds in addition to flames. At least four major fires had engulfed large tracts of land in the metro area’s north and west, with the Thomas Fire reaching 90,000 acres by Thursday morning.

A series of Santa Ana wind-driven wildfires burned out of control in Southern California on Tuesday, destroying at least 180 structures, forcing thousands to flee and smothering the region with smoke in what officials predicted would be a pitched battle for days.

California has been happy to tweak the rules to get more self-driving cars on the road, but it still has its limits. The state’s DMV has eliminated a planned rule (suggested by GM) that would have let companies avoid liability for an autonomous vehicle crash if the machine hadn’t been maintained to manufacturer specs.

Florida, thanks to a string of liability-expanding decisions, has earned itself the top spot in the newest Judicial Hellhole” rankings, according to an annual report issued by the American Tort Reform Association Tuesday.

Pushed by powerful Santa Ana winds, a Southern California fire spread with explosive speed to 26,000 acres on Monday night, forcing thousands to evacuate in the dark.

In a closely watched decision that could impact whether ratepayers are on the hook for billions in costs related to the Napa-Sonoma fires if PG&E is found at fault, the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday denied a request from San Diego Gas & Electric to charge its customers $379 million in costs related to three huge fires that the utility’s power lines caused in 2007.