Strong Wind Gusts Fan Brush Fires; Wreck in Sandstorm Kills Motorist : Weather: ‘Red flag alert’ issued as warm temperatures and low humidity create a tinderbox condition.

As swirling gusts whipped the flames of several brush fires, residents throughout Southern California were buffeted by high winds on Thanksgiving day. The skies were sunny and the temperatures a mild 60 to 70 degrees, but gusts as high as 70 m.p.h. battered trees and set off burglar alarms.

The winds downed power lines, causing brief power outages. Blowing dirt and debris in canyons and over passes obscured visibility along some roadways, leading to one fatality in Riverside County.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department issued a “red flag alert,” warning that the high winds, warm temperatures and low humidity were combining to turn the Southland into a tinderbox.

The National Weather Service’s office at UC Riverside also issued a bulletin for “very high to extreme fire danger ratings on most of the national forests, state and county parks and other wildland areas.”

A motorist was killed and two other people suffered moderate injuries in car collisions during a sandstorm in Romoland, east of Perris in Riverside County, the California Highway Patrol reported. The car had stopped when winds fanned a blinding dust storm, and it was then struck by other vehicles, CHP officials said. There was no immediate identification of the victims.

In San Diego County, about 38,000 households and businesses were blacked out as winds gusting up to 28 m.p.h. blew down power lines. San Diego Gas & Electric Co. spokesmen said 80 workers were called in to repair the lines, which were damaged most heavily in Fallbrook, Vista and Encinitas.

A California Department of Forestry spokeswoman said about a dozen small brush fires broke out in the San Diego region but that the high winds snuffed them out before they spread.

The blustery winds also contributed to traffic jams in South Orange County and kicked up surf along the coast.

“We’ve had a wind advisory for the Camp Pendleton area on the San Diego Freeway, and because there’s a lot of holiday traffic, it’s like a normal work day with the winds adding to the driving problem,” said a CHP dispatcher in Santa Ana.

No major collisions were reported, but unusually heavy traffic did cause numerous slowdowns and minor traffic accidents on the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways. By early afternoon, traffic had ground nearly to a halt heading south out of the county, with cars backed up for miles.

In Huntington Beach, lifeguards reported that erratic winds fanned the surf with offshore breezes. That made for good surfing conditions along the coast, for those willing to brave the cool water and air temperatures.

A fire in a Thousand Oaks canyon burned 35 acres of brush and threatened a dozen hillside homes before firefighters were able to control it Thursday evening, authorities said.

Buffeted by 15-m.p.h winds, the blaze raged within 30 yards of one house, said Ventura County Fire Department spokesman John Foy.

One-hundred firefighters and 15 engines fought the three-alarm fire. In addition, firefighters from Los Angeles County, Ventura and Oxnard fire departments were called in to cover stations left understaffed because of the blaze.

“It seems like a lot of equipment for a 35-acre brush fire, but because the wind was pushing the fire toward the structures, they just dumped all that equipment in there,” Foy said.

Another brush fire broke out in the Linda Vista area west of the Rose Bowl Thursday morning and briefly threatened expensive homes in the Pasadena, Glendale and La Canada Flintridge area.

Fire fighters battled the winds before controlling the 10-acre blaze. The fire raced up brush-covered hillsides and drew near some million-dollar, ridge-top homes, but did not damage any buildings.

About 100 residents in the La Canada Flintridge area were evacuated, but later returned to their homes, according to Brian Jordan, a fire inspector for the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

“We were prepared to open a shelter to house (people), but it wasn’t necessary,” said Beth Cooper, spokeswoman of the Pasadena chapter of the Red Cross.

More than 200 firefighters from Los Angeles County and the city of Pasadena extinguished the blaze with the aid of three helicopters and camp crews of jail inmates who helped clear the dry brush. Two of the inmates suffered minor injuries. The cause of the blaze was under investigation.

Firefighters on the scene were mindful of the fire in Oakland on Oct. 20, when a blaze, which officials thought was out, flared up and turned the hillsides into an inferno. While the terrain around Pasadena is similar to that in Oakland, the Oakland fire cut a swath through a much more heavily wooded area. More than 20 people died and more than 3,000 homes and apartments were lost in that blaze.

Several miles away in South Pasadena, another morning brush fire also threatened homes but was quickly extinguished after burning half an acre. Fire officials said the cause of the fire was not known.

In Baker, a rest stop on busy Interstate 15, the blustery wind temporarily dashed residents’s dreams that their town, population 40, would become internationally known as “Thermometer City.” Gusts as high as 70 m.p.h. toppled a newly built $750,000, 134-foot-high thermometer that was to have been dedicated to Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, inventor of the thermometer.

Built by the owners of the Bun Boy restaurant just off Interstate 15, the giant thermometer fell on a Southern California Edison Co. truck in a nearby parking lot. The crash, which flattened the truck’s tires and destroyed its transmission, also drove a lunch pail through the floor of the vehicle. A Bun Boy spokesman said an effort would be made to raise the thermometer.

The relative humidity dropped to below 15% in much of the Los Angeles Basin Thursday and forecasters expected it to continue until evening. High pressure off the Northern California coast and low pressure over Arizona were responsible for the strong north to northwest winds.

The rest of the Thanksgiving weekend was expected to be mild, clear and windy with high gusts continuing below passes and canyons. The U.S. Weather Service continued a wind advisory in mountain areas through today.

Times staff writer Charles Hillinger contributed to this report.