Juniper Fire in California Prompts Evacuation Order
The blaze, called the Juniper fire, began just before 11:30 a.m. on Monday and swiftly burned more than 600 acres, according to Cal Fire, the state's firefighting agency. The cause of the fire, which was burning about 70 miles southeast of central Los Angeles, was still being investigated, the agency said.
The evacuation orders, which were issued in the afternoon, affect just over 5,000 residents of Riverside County, based on a New York Times analysis of the evacuation zones and LandScan population data. The fire is in an unincorporated county area west of the city of Perris, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. A spokesman for the city of Perris referred inquiries to the Fire Department.
The Juniper fire is one of three blazes in Riverside County that local officials are trying to contain. The Wolf fire, which began on Sunday, has burned more than 1,400 acres. The authorities reported that it was 10 percent contained as of Monday afternoon. The Mindy fire, which also began on Sunday, was mostly contained after burning about 100 acres, and all evacuation orders associated with it have been lifted.
Summer is typically the worst season for wildfires in California, as the atmosphere dries up and temperatures rise. Though it can be difficult to predict wildfire activity, forecasters have already seen signs that this could be an especially intense year, with plenty of dry grass to fuel potential fires.
In Southern California, conditions were especially dry this winter, setting the stage for more and larger fires this summer.
On average, about 1.4 million acres burn a year in California, but there have been varying totals in recent years. More than 4.3 million acres burned in 2020, when dry lightning — lightning without nearby rainfall — sparked an outbreak of wildfires across Northern California, but in 2022 and 2023, only about 300,000 acres burned each year.
Amy Graff and John Keefe contributed reporting.
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