Santa Ana winds taper; blaze 20 percent contained

A respite in Santa Ana winds allowed firefighters to beat back flames that continued to whirl dangerously close to homes Wednesday morning along the city’s northwestern suburbs.

Fire crews worked through the night unleashing loads of water on hot spots of the more than 20-square-mile blaze charring slopes above the San Fernando Valley communities of Porter Ranch and Granada Hills. Flames also pushed west into Ventura County and threatened homes in Simi Valley.

The fire, one of three major blazes that have burned 34 square miles of Southern California, was 20 percent contained early Wednesday.

The wind forecast was a great improvement over the previous few days. Winds in the area were expected to peak at about 15 mph Wednesday morning then taper off for the rest of the day, though temperatures in the 90s were predicted and humidity remained very low, the National Weather Service said.

“We’ll have to wait and see what Mother Nature brings us,” Ventura County fire spokesman Tom Kruschke said earlier.

At their worst earlier in the week, the Santa Ana winds had hit 30 to 40 mph with gusts as high as 50 mph or more.

In a hectic start this week to the wildfire season, blazes destroyed dozens of homes, forced thousands of people to evacuate and caused two deaths. One man died in the flames, and a motorist was killed in a crash as a fire neared a freeway.