4 Boys Start Brush Fire While Smoking : Blaze: Two houses, several barns and 1,500 acres burn in Lancaster. The youngsters, who are wards of the court, range in age from 8 to 10.

Four boys smoking cigarettes started a brush fire in Lancaster on Wednesday afternoon that whipped across 1,500 acres and consumed two houses and several barns before it was contained.

Fanned by gusts of wind that reached 35 m.p.h, the fire burned for more than six hours and was brought under control about 6 p.m.

The boys--one 10, two 9 and one 8--were booked on arson charges. The juveniles, who are wards of the court, were returned to Walden Environment in Lancaster, a home for troubled boys, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

The fire apparently was started while the boys were smoking cigarettes and playing with matches in the yard of the home, sheriff’s and fire officials said.

“They were smoking, and it got away from them,” Deputy Marty Shearer said. “The next thing they knew, it was flames.”

The fire broke out in the sparsely populated high desert area about 11:45 a.m. Fueled by dry brush and the wind gusts, it moved quickly, jumping roads and sending surprised residents fleeing from its path.

Two houses, seven cars, three barns and several chicken coops, sheds and power poles were destroyed, said Mark Savage, a county fire inspector. Sheriff’s deputies estimated damage at about $400,000.

“It started out as a real small fire,” said Malcolm Mallett, standing in front of the smoldering remains of the five-bedroom house he had rented for the past three years. “At first it looked OK.”

Mallett, 46, who had been videotaping the fire from his roof, was forced to flee when the wind blew the flames toward his house.

“Everything we owned is gone,” he said. The five-acre parcel included the house, a guest house, a chicken barn and two garages. Mallett was able to rescue only one of his five dogs.

Four water-dropping helicopters, two bulldozers and about 300 firefighters, including prison inmates and county firefighters from as far away as Carson, fought the blaze, the latest in a series of brush fires that have blackened thousands of acres in Antelope Valley in recent months.

“It just took off,” said county Fire Department Battalion Chief Roy Creel. “Basically we chased it. We couldn’t get out ahead of it.”

“It was the fastest-moving fire I’ve ever seen,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Tony Welch, commander of the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station. “Even when we thought it was stopped, it would start up again.”

The fire moved so quickly that a 63-year-old resident, who declined to give his name, was trapped in his home for about five minutes, but he escaped injury when the blaze swept past.

The family of Raguel Neissgarber, who lived next door, was not as lucky.

“It’s history,” Neissgarber said of the house on Avenue J. “Everything is gone. The garage is gone, the chicken coop is gone, the animals are gone.”

The house’s chimney and a back-yard clothesline hung with white garments were among the signs that a home had stood in the lot now littered with charred rubble.

“Fifteen years of my life just went down the tubes,” said her father, Bill Luke, a retired Edwards Air Force Base fireman, as he gazed on the scene with his wife.

Firefighters were hampered by both the wind and a lack of water in an area where there are few fire hydrants.

Elsewhere, 12 grass fires that blackened more than 1,500 acres in eastern Fresno County were expected to be contained by 8 a.m. today, a state Department of Forestry spokeswoman said.

People who were evacuated from six houses early Wednesday were allowed to go home and no structures were burned, the spokeswoman said. No injuries were reported.

Firefighter Bill Richards said an arsonist was suspected of starting the fires shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday.