Wildfires Threaten Southern California and Arizona (VIDEO)

Accuweather.com reports that these fires come at the beginning of what could be a devastating fire season for portions of the West.

Image courtesy: Accuweather.com

(LOS ANGELES) - A wildfire has forced mandatory evacuations in California Wednesday, while another fire continued to burn out of control in Arizona. Both fires started Tuesday and are currently threatening multiple structures.

The California fire, dubbed "The Jesusita Fire," started around 1:50 p.m Tuesday afternoon and quickly spread through the slopes of the San Roque Canyon north of Santa Barbara. Winds blew over 30 mph at times, which caused the blaze to turn into a raging inferno. Currently, some 2,000 homes were threatened, with 1,200 forced to evacuate.

Winds calmed some Tuesday night, which helped keep the fire from expanding quickly. However, winds are expected to strengthen and remain strong through Thursday morning, which could help spread the fire into populated areas.

AccuWeather's West Coast Expert Ken Clark says "Winds will become northerly and increase to 20 to 40 mph with gusts to 55 mph or better. The terrain in this area can make for very erratic winds, sometimes blowing strong in one canyon, and not in the neighboring canyon. This makes the job for firefighters much more difficult."

After reducing the estimation of the fire's size from 420 acres to 196, fire officials were optimistic and said no new evacuations were planned. However, the blaze is not contained and fire officials could not predict when it might be.

Another fire in Arizona, named "The Canelo Fire," continued to burn out of control around the Ft. Huachuca area. This fire also started Tuesday afternoon. It began on private property, but quickly spread to Coronado National Forest later in the day.

At least five houses have been burned as the fire spread to 4,000 acres. One person has been injured and was taken to the hospital. As of Wednesday morning, 25 percent was contained but fire officials were not sure if it would be totally under control by tonight.

Meanwhile, another fire is raging northeast of Edmonton, Canada. A state of emergency was declared as emergency crews battled the blaze that has spread to nearly 3,000 acres.

These fires come at the beginning of what could be a devastating fire season for portions of the West. Drought conditions throughout California have increased the danger, especially throughout northern parts of the state.

Arizona will also continue to have a heightened fire danger. However, the fire danger should diminish later this summer as monsoon conditions develop.

Video

=======================================================
Special thanks to Andrew Ulrich and Accuweather.com