Officials are bracing for coastal and mountainous flooding from the storm and fear strong winds could spread the massive Fairview fire about 75 miles (121 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. However, minor flooding was reported early Saturday and crews made significant progress on the fire and said they expected full containment by Monday. More than 10,000 homes and other structures have been threatened by the fire. The National Weather Service predicted an end to the grueling heatwave in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, although heat and wind advisories remained in effect into the evening and warned of possible flooding in mountainous areas and some coastal communities. In San Diego County, inland areas such as Mount Laguna and Julian received several inches of rain from the storm, while coastal communities received less than an inch, the National Weather Service said. Hurricane Kay made landfall near Bahia Asuncion, Mexico in the state of Baja California Sur, but quickly weakened to a tropical storm by the time it reached Southern California. Tropical conditions added a lull to a heat wave that saw temperatures exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) in many parts of California this week. Some residents welcomed the respite from the unusually high temperatures. “The heat has been killer, so for now it’s nice,” Charles Jenkins said as rain fell Friday in San Diego. With flooding likely, officials in coastal cities posted warning signs in low-lying areas and made sandbags available to the public. In the Orange County community of Seal Beach, a beach parking lot suffered minor flooding Friday from high tide, police said. September has already produced one of the hottest and longest heat waves on record in California and some other western states. Almost 54 million people were hit with heat warnings and advisories across the region this week as temperature records were broken in many areas. California’s state capital Sacramento hit a record high of 116 degrees (46.7C) on Tuesday, breaking a 97-year-old record. Salt Lake City tied its all-time high temperature Wednesday at 107 degrees (41.6 C). On Tuesday, as air conditioners whirred amid the sweltering heat, California hit a record power outage and authorities nearly triggered a blackout when the power grid was at its limit. Scientists say climate change has made the West hotter and drier over the past three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. Over the past five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive wildfires in the state’s history. While firefighters made progress against the Fairview fire, the fast-moving Mosquito Fire in the foothills east of Sacramento doubled in size Friday to at least 46 square miles (119 square kilometers) and threatened 3,600 homes in Placer and El Dorado counties while blanketing the in the smoke. The flames jumped the American River, burning structures in the mountain town of Volcanoville and approaching the towns of Foresthill, home to about 1,500 people, and Georgetown, population 3,000. More than 5,700 people in the area have been evacuated, said Lt. Josh Barnhart of the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. David Hance was sleeping on the porch of his mother’s mobile home in Foresthill when he awoke to a bright red sky early Wednesday morning and was ordered to evacuate. “It was really scary, because they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s coming,’” she said. “It was like sunset in the middle of the night.” Hance left behind most of his electronic equipment, all of his clothes and family photos and fled to Auburn, where he found his mother, Linda Hance, who said the biggest stress is wondering, “Is this my home still there;” Tour de Tahoe organizers announced Friday they were canceling the annual 72-mile (115 km) bike ride scheduled for Sunday around Lake Tahoe because of thick smoke from the wildfire — more than 50 miles (80 km) away. and noted that cycling is a “cardio-heavy activity that doesn’t mix well with terrible air quality.” Last year’s ride was canceled due to smoke from another large wildfire south of Tahoe. The cause of the mosquito fire remains under investigation. Pacific Gas & Electric said unspecified “electrical activity” occurred near the report of the fire Tuesday. ———— Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Noah Berger in Auburn, Calif., Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, and Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon contributed to this report.
