Upcoming Heatwave Expected to Worsen Raging California Wildfire

The blaze — which shut down US 101, the state's major coastal highway, for two nights in a row — had consumed 9 square miles of heavy brush.

The fire was 20 percent contained but so-called "sundowner" winds that rush down the mountains in 40 mph gusts were beginning to kick up again Friday night, fire officials said, AP reported.

Weekend fire dangers already were expected to worsen with the arrival of an extreme heatwave across the Southwest.

Another fire erupted Friday afternoon in Northern California. The wind-driven blaze southwest of Sacramento quickly burned 200 acres of grasslands and prompted the evacuation of China Gulch, a tiny community in the historic Gold Country.

By evening, though, the fire's forward movement had been stopped and the blaze was 40 percent contained.

In central New Mexico, a blaze that began Tuesday had destroyed 24 homes and charred more than 26 square miles near the small community of Chilili.

Lighter winds helped firefighters battle the blaze in triple-digit temperatures.

Three days after the fire erupted in the Manzano Mountains south of Albuquerque, it remained "extremely active," said fire information officer Denise Ottaviano.

Authorities expanded a mandatory evacuation zone to include more subdivisions to the north and east. They could not say how many homes were affected or how many were directly threatened.

The fire cast a thick haze that reached as far north as Denver.

The California inferno appeared to support national wildfire authorities' predictions of another dangerous and difficult year for the state after years of drought. State firefighters and the US Forest Service already have fought more than 1,800 wildfires since Jan. 1, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.