A brush fire in Riverside County prompted evacuations Sunday afternoon, officials said.
The Tenaja fire started at 11:48 a.m. near the Tenaja Truck Trail in the Cleveland National Forest, authorities said. It was mapped at 100 acres as of 1:45 p.m.
Evacuation orders were issued for the area near the truck trail. El Cariso Village was placed under an evacuation warning. Ortega Highway was closed in both directions.
An evacuation center was being set up at Lakeside High School in Lake Elsinore, according to the Riverside County Emergency Management Department. Large animals were being accepted at the San Jacinto Animal Shelter.
Authorities reported 0% containment. There was no word on the cause of the fire.
It’s been a busy year for fires in California, especially compared to the past two relatively mild seasons. That comes after two consecutive wet winters stoked the growth of grasses and other vegetation, and a broiling hot summer dried all that plant material out.
As of Friday, 5,435 wildland fires had burned 830,461 acres, compared with a five-year average of 5,325 fires and 583,913 acres over the same period, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. One person has died, in the Mina fire near Covelo last month.
The state’s largest fire this year — and its fourth-largest on record — is the Park fire, which is now 78% contained after burning a 429,603-acre swath across Butte, Tehama, Shasta and Plumas counties. Firefighters were greatly assisted by recent rains that soaked the footprint, and no fire activity could be seen as a result, officials said Saturday.
Damage inspectors were able to survey areas that were previously inaccessible and learned that 709 structures were destroyed and 54 damaged.
Authorities say the fire began when Ronnie Dean Stout II, 54, pushed a burning car into a gully in Upper Bidwell Park in Chico on July 24. He has pleaded not guilty to a charge of arson in connection with the blaze.