The
fire broke out in the early afternoon after a traffic collision
caused a tree to catch fire, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department said in a statement.
The blaze swelled to roughly 800 acres (324 hectares) but
firefighters had managed to contains about half the blaze by 6
p.m.(0100 GMT), the Los Angeles County Fire Department tweeted.
Its size at that point had shrunk by about 50 acres, the
department said.
An image posted by fire officials on Twitter showed two massive
plumes of smoke swirling toward the sky over a blackened hilly
landscape in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
The blaze was burning in the southeastern area of Santa Clarita,
a city of some 181,500 residents.
Authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders for residents in
some areas threatened by the blaze, though it was not clear how
many people were affected, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department said.
One structure was destroyed by the fire and State Route 14 was
closed in both directions earlier on Sunday, but traffic has
since resumed, the department said.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Andrew Hay)
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