Wildfires

Wildfires - USA

Surging wildfires on Tuesday forced new evacuations of hundreds of homes across the West, while firefighters began beating back a pair of big adjacent blazes looming over suburban Los Angeles.

Near the U.S.-Mexico border southeast of San Diego, a two-day-old, 9-square-mile wildfire moved toward a new community and forced the evacuation of about 600 homes and more than 1,500 people in Lake Morena Village.

In the Los Angeles area, firefighters stopped the progress of two adjacent fires in the San Gabriel Mountains 20 miles northeast of downtown LA. The blazes were 10 percent contained and had burned about 7 ½ square miles

Elsewhere, crews made progress against a week-old blaze in rugged coastal mountains west of Santa Barbara, boosting containment to 84 percent.

In New Mexico, a 28-square-mile fire that erupted last week and destroyed 24 homes in the mountains south of Albuquerque showed signs of slowing down.

In eastern Arizona, a fire doubled to nearly 42 square miles and led officials to warn a community of 300 residents to prepare to evacuate. The blaze on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation was not moving quickly toward the community of Cedar Creek because of sparse vegetation and shifting winds.