SIMI VALLEY, Ventura County — A wind-whipped outbreak of wildfires outside Los Angeles threatened thousands of homes and horse ranches Wednesday, forced the evacuation of elderly patients in wheelchairs and narrowly bypassed the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, protected in part by a buffer zone chewed by goats.
The onslaught came as both ends of the state struggled with blazes, dangerously windy weather and deliberate blackouts.
The brush fire near the Reagan library erupted before dawn between the cities of Simi Valley and Moorpark, north of Los Angeles, and exploded to more than 1,300 acres, Ventura County officials said.
About 7,000 homes, or around 26,000 people, were ordered evacuated, authorities said.
“The fire outflanked us very rapidly today, pushed by those 40 to 50 mph winds,” with gusts up to 65 mph, fire incident commander Chad Cook said.
Library spokeswoman Melissa Giller saidthe flames came within about 30 yards of the property but that it was protected by aircraft dropping water and by a firebreak, a zone along the perimeter that had been cleared of brush by goats.
Hundreds of goats are brought in each year to eat away vegetation that could fuel wildfires on the 300-acre grounds, Giller said. Reagan and his wife, Nancy, are buried next to each other on a hillside at the library.
Helicopters and airplanes attacked the blaze as some 800 firefighters battled it on the ground. The flames pushed through sparsely developed hills between suburban tract developments. Ranchers rushed to evacuate horses, goats and other livestock.
A wildfire at least 100 acres in size also broke out east of Los Angeles, in Riverside County’s Jurupa Valley, and workers at a health care facility feverishly evacuated elderly people in wheelchairs and gurneys amid thick...
