Nearly 20,000 Acres Scorched by 2 Blazes

A wildfire in San Luis Obispo County destroyed one home and four outbuildings and forced evacuations as it marched Monday through 1,500 acres of rolling, oak-studded hills, while a nearly week-old lightning-ignited blaze scorched nearly 18,000 acres of brush in eastern San Diego County.

The Santa Margarita fire in northern San Luis Obispo County was started Sunday afternoon by a spark from an off-road vehicle, said California Department of Forestry spokeswoman Nena Portillo. The driver was cited for having a modified exhaust system.

The fire was 30% contained early Monday, said forestry dispatcher Corrin Clark.

About 200 homes and 50 outbuildings near California 58 and Huer Huero Road were threatened, and high temperatures and winds were causing spot fires to erupt, Clark said.

About 250 people left their homes as firefighters fought flames in brushy cattle country about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. The flames fanned out over the same area where a blaze destroyed one home last summer. The area also saw more than 106,000 acres consumed in a 1996 wildfire that destroyed nine homes.

Farther south, a blaze that began July 16 was about half-surrounded, firefighters said. Full containment was expected by Wednesday, according to the forestry department.

More than 70 homes and 67 other buildings were in the area of the fire, but there were no evacuations, said Laura Lowes, a fire information officer with the state forestry department.

The area, about 60 miles northeast of San Diego near Riverside County, lies in the brush-covered hills of Chihuahua and Lost valleys on the edge of Cleveland National Forest.

Two mobile homes used as offices at a research station operated by San Diego State have been destroyed. The fire also destroyed a building and several small structures at the Sky Oaks Biological Field Station, a 1,600-acre preserve for biological and environmental research.

The fire started near Coyote Canyon and burned across part of the Boy Scout’s Lost Valley Scout Reservation. About 600 people left the camp as a precaution Wednesday.