SANTA PAULA, California — Over ten thousand people were ordered to evacuate communities northwest of Los Angeles as fierce seasonal winds drove a wildfire down tinder-dry hillsides into ranches and homes, authorities said.

Firefighters and police cleared residents from neighbourhoods near Camarillo before homes were set ablaze by embers blown two miles (3.2 km) from the fire front, Ventura County fire department Captain Tony McHale said by phone from near the blaze.

"It's like trying to put out a blowtorch with a squirt gun," said McHale of the fire which began in a hillside canyon on Wednesday then tore west, driven by Santa Ana winds.

Fuelled by abundant grass and scrub, with wind gusts up to 80 mph (130 kph), the blaze has burned over 14,500 acres (5,900 hectares), authorities said.

Climate scientists say warming temperatures have created wet winters that allow California's coastal chaparral — small trees, shrubs and bushes — to thrive. Record-high temperatures this summer have turned hillsides into unlit bonfires.

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