Carbon Canyon Chino Hllls Fire

Southern Californians weathered a third day of destruction Saturday as wind-blasted wildfires

(Yorba Linda, Brea, Sylmar, Corona, Chino Hills etc.) destroyed hundreds of homes, shut down freeways and forced more than 25,000 people in the path of flames to flee to safety in four counties.

Thousands of residents are under mandatory evacuation orders as a fire that exploded overnight in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest whizzed into the San Fernando Valley and burned more than 6,500 acres.

In Chino Hills, a mandatory evacuation of Carbon Canyon was ordered at 8:35 p.m. The evacuation involved 150 to 500 people.

A separate fire in Brea destroyed the main building of Brea Canyon High School.

The most destructive of the blazes was in Sylmar, known as the Sayre Fire, which wiped out almost 500 homes in the 600-unit Oakridge Mobile Home Park and damaged 40 to 50 others, officials said. The fire was only 20 percent contained late Saturday.

The police chief of Los Angeles says he is concerned that people may have died in a mobile home park destroyed by the fire.

Chief William Bratton said Saturday that cars were found in the remains. He says police will have to wait until the ground cools to bring in search dogs.

A separate fire south of Los Angeles in Orange County has charred more than 800 acres and destroyed at least 10 structures in the communities of Yorba Linda and Corona, south of Los Angeles.

Further up the coast near Santa Barbara, firefighters continue to battle a two-day-old blaze in the celebrity enclave of Montecito, where 111 homes have been destroyed. About 40 percent had been contained, a spokesman said.