California fire threatens power lines, oil fields

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A wind-driven wildfire believed to have spontaneously ignited in a manure pile grew to nearly 10,000 acres on Wednesday as it crept toward a town north of Los Angeles, threatening power lines and oil fields.

The blaze erupted on Tuesday morning on the first day of fall, the traditional start of the Santa Ana wind season in Southern California marked by hot, dry gusts that blow in to coastal mountains and canyons from the deserts to the east.

The so-called Guiberson Fire, the most menacing of several wildland blazes flaring across the region, had charred at least 9,700 acres of tinder-dry grasslands and brush as it advanced on the outskirts of Moorpark, a community of 45,000 people about 30 miles north of Los Angeles.

The flames were being fanned by gale-force wind gusts, with a "red flag" warning for extreme fire hazard to remain in effect through Thursday for Southern California.

The extreme fire weather comes as Los Angeles County is still battling its worst fire on record. The Station Fire, classified as arson, has burned over 160,000 acres, destroyed 89 homes and killed two firefighters since it broke out a month ago.

In the latest fire, about 1,000 homes were immediately threatened by flames, along with a number of oil production fields and storage facilities, authorities said. Five electrical transmission lines that supply power to large areas of Ventura and neighboring Santa Barbara also were in danger and the blaze was only 20 percent contained.

GAS PIPELINE

Fire officials said a large natural gas pipeline traverses the area. But a spokeswoman for Southern California Gas Co., unit of Sempra Energy, said that line runs underground, not above, as fire officials initially reported.

"There's no threat to the public" and no interruption of service, the spokeswoman, Denise King, told Reuters.

Nearly 900 firefighters were battling the blaze, backed by an arsenal of helicopters and airplanes.

"We're hitting it with with everything we've got," fire department spokesman Bill Nash said, adding that tinder-dry grass and brush fueling the blaze in triple-digit heat and low humidity "will burn just as fast as the wind will push it."

Four firefighters have been slightly injured since the blaze erupted on Tuesday morning.

The Los Angeles Times and other local media reported the fire apparently was sparked by the spontaneous combustion of manure.

Ventura County Fire Department Captain Ron Oatman said the blaze began in or near a manure pile, but the cause remained under investigation.

The rolling hills in the area are dotted by ranches as well as fruit and avocado orchards.

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Joe Silha in New York, Editing by Sandra Maler)