Fire Rages in Angeles National Forest : Arson: Sheriff’s Department says blaze was deliberately set. Residents and campers are forced to evacuate as fire burns out of control near Santa Clarita.

A fast-moving brush fire that within five hours had blackened more than 1,000 acres was burning out of control Saturday night in the rugged Angeles National Forest northeast of Santa Clarita.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported that the fire had been deliberately set. The U.S. Forest Service is continuing the investigation, but investigators said they had no leads as to the arsonist’s identity. The fire, which broke out shortly before 2:30 p.m. in the upper Bouquet Canyon area, forced the evacuation of residents from more than 50 homes, weekend cabins and campgrounds scattered throughout the canyon. Officials said about 60 families left the canyon, but none showed up at Red Cross evacuation centers set up as a precaution at Saugus High School in the Santa Clarita Valley and at Quartz Hill High School in the Antelope Valley.

Although the fire continued to burn out of control firefighters believed they had gained the upper hand as night fell and winds that had reached 30 m.p.h. began to die down. Authorities said they expect to have the fire contained by 6 p.m. today.

No homes were damaged, but a storage shed was destroyed, firefighters said, and the flames were coming perilously close to other structures, prompting the evacuation.

“Our main objective is to build a line to protect those houses,” said Bruce Bundick, U.S. Forest Service spokesman. “If everything goes well, we think we can do that.”

Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Rafael Ortiz said the fire started in two places on Bouquet Canyon Road near the Texas Canyon ranger station and then merged as it burned. The road was later closed between Spunky Canyon Road and Vasquez Canyon Road, a 10-mile stretch, and had not reopened even to residents.

Authorities had not determined the cause of the blaze, but arson investigators were at the scene.

The Bouquet Canyon blaze comes as firefighters and residents continued mopping up after a series of fires that have plagued the Southland in recent weeks, including a devastating inferno in Santa Barbara that burned hundreds of homes, causing upward of $300 million in damage, and another in Glendale that destroyed 46 homes and damaged more than 20 others.

About 450 firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Forestry and the Los Angeles County and Ventura County fire departments were battling the rapidly moving blaze in the steep-walled canyon, which was burning northeast toward the Bouquet Canyon Reservoir, Bundick said. Four firefighters suffered minor injuries.

Many people in the area refused to comply with the voluntary evacuation sought by fire officials.

Dave Foley, who owns a carpet store in Saugus, said when he heard about the fire he rushed to his single-story weekend home in the canyon. He began using an electric water pump to draft water from a nearby creek and doused his roof with water, but when the electricity went off the pump stopped. He then filled buckets with stream water and carried them up a ladder to the roof.

“A couple of people have the gasoline pumps,” he said, referring to other canyon residents. “I’m going to get one.”

Tom Thompson of Sylmar said he was ordered to evacuate his weekend cabin after the fire burned within a couple of hundred yards of the structure.

“I can see it jumping all around,” he said. “They’re doing a pretty good job. I think they’re going to get it out.”

Michael Crane and his fiance, Tammy Lyon, said they saw one of the fires shortly after it started about a mile north of the Texas Canyon ranger station as they were driving toward the Big Oaks Lodge, a restaurant and bar in Bouquet Canyon owned by Crane’s aunt, Dee White.

Crane said that after he saw the fire, he turned around and drove back to the Texas Canyon Ranger Station to report it. He happened to have his camera with him and took pictures of the blaze. He said he has turned the film over to arson investigators.

Crane, Lyon and White grabbed the cash register, pictures and boxes of whiskey and beer from the lodge and loaded them into a truck, ready to evacuate.

But by 6:30 p.m., they sat at a picnic table in front of the lodge sipping fruit and tomato juice as five fire-fighting helicopters doused the flames in the distance. Earlier, Crane had scaled the roof to water it down with a hose.

“We were ordered to evacuate a couple of times, but we’re not leaving,” Crane said.

Ironically, the Big Oaks Lodge, a fixture in the canyon since the turn of the century, suffered a fire in January of this year and just reopened this month.

This time, the fire burned several hundred yards from the lodge.

Times staff writers Philipp Gollner and John Chandler contributed to this report.