LOS ANGELES — As some residents whose homes were threatened by a vast Southern California wildfire were allowed to return home Monday, forecasters warned that the cooler, damper conditions that have aided recent firefighting efforts would soon turn in favor of the flames.
More than 2,000 residents were allowed to return to their homes in Goleta, about 85 miles northwest of Los Angeles, said Roger Aceves, the city’s mayor pro tem.
Firefighters had contained 35 percent of the fire in the Los Padres National Forest that is threatening the city. But some mandatory evacuation orders remained in effect because of the fire’s growing western flank on the Santa Ynez Mountains, Aceves said.
The National Weather Service in Sacramento said that over the next couple of days, California’s coastal regions would get warmer temperatures and offshore breezes that would keep moist marine air from coming inland.
The wildfire threatening Goleta is among more than 300 raging across the state, including a 120-square-mile fire that has destroyed homes near the Northern California coastal city of Big Sur and a 40-square-mile burning near Piute.
Fire officials said they don’t expect the fires near Big Sur or Piute to be controlled for at least another two weeks.
Wildfires have blackened more than 800 square miles and destroyed at least 69 homes throughout California, mainly in the north, in the past two weeks.
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