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(Bloomberg) -- Southern California faces several more tense days of heightened fire risk before the possible return of long-delayed rain this weekend, as gusty winds buffet a region exhausted by weeks of battling blazes.
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Tuesday saw a rash of small fires erupt across San Diego County, as winds raked terrain left dangerously dry by more than half a year without significant rain. More strong winds are expected to arrive Wednesday afternoon, with the National Weather Service issuing a fire weather watch through Thursday evening. But this weekend could bring much-needed rain, with up to 0.5 inches (1.3 centimeters) forecast for the drought-stricken Los Angeles area.
“At this point, any increase in moisture and break in these winds is a good thing,” said Harry Weinman, a forecaster for the US Storm Prediction Center. “The longer you have these persistent offshore winds, it just continuously dries out the fuels there.”
Over the last two weeks, Southern California has endured repeated rounds of dry Santa Ana winds, which tend to peak in December and January. The winds are caused by a buildup of high pressure over the Great Basin, an arid zone in the US West that spans most of Nevada. As air rushes out of the basin toward pockets over low pressure over the Pacific Ocean, California’s mountain ranges channel the winds into powerful gusts.
Firefighters have made significant progress against the Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles County, which have all but stopped growing. The blazes, which started Jan. 7, have destroyed more than 15,000 homes and buildings, killing at least 27 people, according to county officials. CoreLogic, a data services firm, has estimated that insured losses from the fires could be between $35 billion and $45 billion.
More than 12 million people were in the path of critical fire weather conditions Tuesday, spanning the inland suburbs of Santa Ana, San Bernardino, Glendale, and Riverside, as well as Anaheim — best known as the home of the Disneyland theme park. Gusts of up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) per hour were expected in the mountains outside of Los Angeles, with strong winds felt as far south as the Mexico border.
Four small fires were reported Tuesday in San Diego County, forcing evacuations and threatening structures as winds gusted near 60 mph (97 kph). The Lilac Fire has burned at least 80 acres (32 hectares) in the hills northeast of Carlsbad and is 30% contained, while crews were able to quickly curb smaller blazes that started nearby. The area was the site of a large brush fire in 2017, which was the most destructive fire year on record to that point, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.