As the sun began to set over Lake Castaic on Wednesday, the mountains to the north and east were engulfed in flames, casting an eerie orange glow on the valley below.
The Hughes Fire, which had ignited earlier in the day north of Castaic, had grown to more than 9,000 acres by evening, forcing the evacuation of about 31,000 people.
Along Lake Hughes Road, piles of wood supporting power lines were charred and high-voltage wires snaked across the pavement.

A bulldozer operator walks into the flames to set up a containment line on the Hughes Fire on Charlie Canyon Road in Castaic.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Above, a pair of firefighting helicopters circled in steady, hurried laps between the lake and the burning hillsides. Hovering above the surface, it took only a minute to fill their water tanks with hoses, then drop their loads on the flames and return again.
South of the lake, a large empty field burned as dozens of fire engines battled the remaining volcanoes. Across Ridge Road, a string of apartment buildings stood a stone's throw from the flames, and residents watched the scene like fans at a sporting event — phones held high, sharing shocking images with friends and family via livestreaming video.
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Antonio Moradaya was at work about 15 minutes away when he heard the field next to his apartment building on fire.
He ran home, threw his passport and any other documents into his car, then stepped outside to watch what turned out to be an hour-long battle between firefighters and the flames.

Flames overtook the mountain amid thick smoke in Castaic on Wednesday.
(Wally Scalige/Los Angeles Times)
A few blocks east of Interstate 5, nothing burned between him and the freeway, and if things got bad, he had a good escape route — the roads weren't clogged with traffic.
He joked that it was “safe” because a small county firehouse was half a block away, “but the fire was even closer!”