An evacuation order is in place near the city of Malibu in the US state of California after a fast-moving wildfire broke out and burned hundreds of acres of vegetation.
The blaze has been dubbed the Franklin Fire by authorities, who say it started in Malibu Canyon at about 22:50 local time on Monday (06:50 GMT).
Firefighters are on the scene and a mandatory evacuation order is in place for a wide swathe of eastern Malibu. A shelter-in-place order applies to much of nearby Pepperdine University.
It is not yet clear what caused the blaze, which has been labelled a brush fire – meaning a type of blaze that affects lower-lying vegetation such as grasses.
Wildfires more generally in California have the capacity to burn through tens of thousands of acres of vegetation, meaning that this blaze is relatively small – although officials were quick to highlight its speed of spread.
Malibu city authorities initially said the fire was about three miles (4.8km) north of the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), but later spread south across the road into the Malibu Pier area. The pier itself and other structures had been affected, they said.
Malibu itself is a small, upmarket city west of Los Angeles popular with wealthy celebrities. More than 1,800 acres of land have so far been burned, according to the latest update from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).
The evacuation order covered a region east of Malibu Canyon Road and South of Piuma Road as well as the Serra Retreat area, the County of Los Angeles Fire Department said.
The blaze broke out near Pepperdine University. The university said its community was sheltering in place. Power to the much of the campus and wider area had been cut and was expected to stay that way for the “foreseeable future”, it added.
The latest incident comes about a month after another fire forced thousands of people to evacuate another nearby city, Moorpark.
California is a state that is prone to wildfires. The amount of burned areas in the summer in northern and central California increased five times from 1996 to 2021 compared with the 24-year period before, which scientists have attributed to human-caused climate change.
Not all wildfires can automatically be linked directly to climate change. The science is complicated and human factors, including how we manage land and forests, also contribute.
However, scientists say that climate change is making weather conditions that lead to wildfires, such as heat and drought, more likely.
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