Features

LOS ANGELES — An arsonist torched a car during a hot, dry Southern California windstorm, sparking a fire perilously close to dozens of homes, and a 480-acre wildfire in a condor refuge burned untamed Monday, although the birds weren’t in danger. 

A grassland blaze that began shortly before 6 a.m. in the remote area of Hopper Canyon in the Los Padres National Forest 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles, was still out of control at midafternoon. 

About 350 firefighters were hampered by winds gusting to 60 mph that grounded helicopters. 

“It’s hard even to stand up,” said Sandi Wells, a spokeswoman for the Ventura County Fire Department. “It’s blowing so hard that you can’t see the smoke. The wind is dissipating it.” 

No injuries were reported and no homes were threatened by the blaze. 

The eight endangered California condors who live in the refuge did not appear to be in danger, said Joe Luna, a county fire spokesman. 

“They were flying free at the time of the fire,” he said. 

A wildfire in October 1998 in the area blackened more than 12,000 acres of brushland. 

In Orange County, 30 acres of brush burned near Irvine Lake before the fire was contained without injury or damage to dozens of homes nestled in the hilly brushlands. The blaze was sparked by a stolen van set on fire and left on a dirt road, according to the Orange County Fire Authority. 

The seasonal Santa Ana winds gusted through canyons, valleys and deserts, whipping Christmas lights and palm trees and overturning a big rig truck. 

No injuries were reported, and the winds were expected to die down by nightfall, but return sporadically throughout the week. 

A high pressure zone that has kept the area dry and warm for the past few days was expected to remain through the holidays. Temperatures were in the 70s to low 80s. 

Humidity was a skin-cracking 10 percent in some areas, and there is no rain in the foreseeable future, said Bruce Rockwell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. 

“The last several years have been like this,” he said of the dry December. However, a wet January, February and March has followed, he added. 

“Technically, we’re not even in winter yet,” he noted. “We’ve still got a lot of winter ahead.” 

In the flat areas east of Los Angeles, trucks and recreational vehicles pulled over to wait out the winds. 

Slav Troyan of the Moscow Circus and his 10-dog act were forced to turn back temporarily while heading to Victorville for Wednesday performances. 

“Our trailer was ... like a boat on the waves,” he told KCAL-TV. 

“It feels like something from Dorothy in Kansas and the Wizard of Oz,” Kate Coleman said of the gusts roaring through the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley. 

The dry, blustery weather wasn’t much fun for Vicki Andrews either. 

“I teach school and the kids are just crazy in this kind of wind,” she told KABC-TV. “It’s horrible.” 

In Riverside County, the winds scoured dirt from fields and whirled it into blinding brown clouds. 

“I’m looking out the window and I can’t see the hills. It’s all blowing dirt. It’s yucky,” said Joanne Evans, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry in Perris. 

But the warm weather was a boon for beaches. 

“It certainly has brought people out in droves, especially people who have out-of-town guests,” said Christine Lloyd, spokeswoman for Gladstone’s, a beachside restaurant in Malibu. 

Lloyd said she reveled in the weather because it reminds her of December in her native Australia. 

“I was out in the back yard, hosing off the pool chairs, in just shorts and T-shirt, having a great time. 

“It feels like home. I love it,” she said. “Me being a Sydney girl, it’s 80 degrees, it looks like a real Christmas to me.”