Hot Winds, Dry Brush Fuel Fires : Blazes: More than 1,200 acres are charred in Angeles National Forest near Castaic, closing down Golden State Freeway for hours. A number of homes are damaged in San Diego County.

Several fires fueled by hot winds and dry brush spread across Southern California Monday, including one that burned more than 1,200 acres in the Angeles National Forest near Castaic.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 firefighters kept watch on San Diego County wild-land blazes that consumed 2,000 acres over the weekend, but most were due to be released from duty by today or reassigned to Los Angeles fires.

A freeway car crash early Monday sparked the Castaic fire, prompting the closure of traffic lanes on the Golden State Freeway for several hours and creating a massive traffic jam stretching south into the Santa Clarita Valley.

The fire was 80% contained by late Monday evening, with complete containment expected early today. More than 600 Los Angeles County, Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service firefighters battled the blaze. Airplanes and helicopters were used to drop water and chemicals. A team of bulldozers cleared brush in a 40-foot-wide path from land adjacent to a tract of nearly 300 homes a mile south of the blaze.

One firefighter was injured by falling rocks and was being treated at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita.

A separate fire broke out later Monday about a mile northeast, on the east side of the Golden State Freeway near Paradise Springs. Firefighters believe that it was ignited by wind-carried embers.

A favorable shift in winds early in the day turned the Castaic fire away from homes and farther west into the brushy hillsides near the Ventura County border, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Denise Rains.

Homeowner Ed Gallo joined neighbors in the Hidden Lake housing tract along Victoria Road who were clearing weeds and hosing off lawns while watching anxiously to see if the fire would spread toward their homes.

“I’m probably going to have a big water bill, but it will be worth it,” said Gallo, who owns a Castaic fast-food restaurant.

The fire started shortly before 2 a.m., when a car driving south toward Los Angeles veered off the freeway near Templin Highway. The 17-year-old driver from Hayward and three members of her family were slightly injured in the accident, which sparked some dry brush, California Highway Patrol Officer John Manduca said. The family was treated for cuts and bruises and released from Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.

Several motorists stopped and tried briefly to put out the fire, Manduca said. But the five-year drought, combined with searing temperatures, caused it to spread quickly, said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Deputy Bill Zeason. “The conditions are extremely poor for fighting a fire,” he said.

Weekend temperatures that topped 100 degrees--combined with exceptionally low humidity and erratic winds--caused the San Diego blazes to spread rapidly, doing more than $360,000 in property damage, said California Department of Forestry spokeswoman Audrey Hagen.

All the property damage was caused by the fire centered near Alpine at Loveland Reservoir in the Cleveland National Forest. Sparked Saturday by an illegal campfire, the blaze burned 1,550 acres--most of it steep terrain covered with chaparral and inaccessible to engines and bulldozers, U.S. Forest Service Fire Information Officer Roger Wong said.

But where the fire encroached on settled areas--mostly along Japatul Road--it left substantial damage. One house was destroyed and two were damaged. Also destroyed were two trailers, a mobile home, more than a dozen cars--some of them junked, 20 sheds and garages, a satellite dish and an aviary, Hagen said.

A number of chickens on a chicken ranch died of smoke inhalation, Wong said.

More than 200 firefighters kept watch Monday on a blaze at the Manzanita Indian Reservation, about 25 miles east of Alpine. That fire, which started Sunday, burned more than 800 acres, Hagen said. It was under control Monday.

The Castaic and Paradise Springs fires closed southbound lanes of the Golden State Freeway, which were reopened. But by midmorning, the four northbound lanes were closed, creating a five-mile line of traffic and shutting off the main highway out of Southern California.

By evening, only two lanes of the Golden State Freeway were open, stalling traffic for hours.

Frantic motorists flooded the California Highway Patrol office in Newhall with calls from cellular car phones, CHP officials said.

“There were a lot of angry people on the phone,” said CHP receptionist Debbie Clifton. “They were asking, ‘How much longer do I have to wait?’ ”

Chuck McDaniel, 35, of Frazier Park was caught first in the early morning traffic jam caused by the closing of southbound lanes. Then, returning from his job as a pipe fitter in Burbank, he was trapped in the traffic jam heading north.

“It’s pathetic,” McDaniel said. “Why didn’t they warn us earlier?”

Angeles Forest Blaze A fire touched off by a traffic crash scorched brush in Angeles National Forest on Monday and forced temporary closure of the Golden State Freeway in the area.