Unchecked wildfire sears Southern California

What happened

A rapidly spreading wildfire in California's San Bernardino County exploded in size over the weekend, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their mountain communities yesterday and threatening more than 35,000 buildings. Three of the more than 600 firefighters battling the Line Fire have been injured, Cal Fire said, and the blaze was 0% contained as of Sunday night.

Who said what

The fire crews are "trying to fight the fires on some steep terrain," and "the weather is definitely not cooperating," said Dave Munyan at the National Weather Service's San Diego office to the Los Angeles Times. The Line Fire was burning so hot over the weekend it created its own weather system, with pyroculumus clouds sending lightning and erratic winds into the area, the weather service said. The lightning grounded some of the aircraft called in to dump water and retardants on the fire.

The Line Fire is part of an "eruption of wildfires" that firefighters are battling in California, Oregon and Nevada amid dry conditions, The Washington Post said. Southern California, in particular, is experiencing a "scorching heat wave" with "temperatures approaching or tying all-time records."

What next?

The Line Fire has "room to grow now in essentially three directions and there are population centers and pretty dense, dry vegetation in between those population centers," UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a briefing Saturday. The heat wave was "not expected to break until Tuesday," the Times said.

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