A wildfire raged for a third day through high chaparral and timber in the Santa Cruz mountains southeast of San Francisco on Wednesday (September 28), threatening hundreds of structures after destroying at least one home and several outbuildings.
The blaze, dubbed the Loma fire, has scorched more than 2,200 acres since erupting on Monday in rugged, drought-parched terrain in Santa Clara County, forcing an unspecified number of mandatory evacuations in the area, fire officials said.
As of Wednesday morning firefighters had managed to carve containment lines around 10 percent of the blaze’s perimeter, up from 5 percent the day before, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention (Calfire).
More than 1,000 fire personnel have been assigned to the blaze, which was threatening some 300 homes and other structures scattered throughout the fire zone, a Calfire spokeswoman said.
She said a number of residents ordered from their homes earlier in adjacent Santa Cruz County had been allowed back, but the bulk of evacuations, which were in Santa Clara County, remained in effect on Wednesday night.
