California firefighters expected to contain a massive wildfire Monday that had burned 28,000 acres, damaged and destroyed properties, caused evacuations and cost millions of dollars to battle, authorities said.

A reversal of winds and higher humidity helped the more than 1,000 fire personnel on the scene reach a 75 percent containment level late Sunday, and evacuation orders had been lifted, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, commonly known as Cal Fire.

The blaze, which started Wednesday, quickly spread as hot Santa Ana winds and low humidity pushed it toward the Pacific Ocean. By Friday it had grown to 10,000 acres and was threatening Malibu after reaching the beach in Ventura County.

An eight-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway was closed, and evacuation orders were widespread. But over the weekend, the wind changed direction, blowing cooler and much more humid air in from the Pacific.

Water-dropping airplanes and helicopters have fought the Springs Fire for days, along with more than 2,000 firefighters, NBCLosAngeles.com reported, saying the cost of the effort was expected to reach about $8 million.

Authorities on Monday continued battling a second large blaze, the Panther Fire in Tehama County, which had burned nearly 7,000 acres by Sunday night and was concentrated in rugged terrain, Cal Fire said.

More than 1,800 people were working Sunday night to gain the upper hand on the fire, and three injuries had been reported. The fire was listed as 60 percent contained, and Cal Fire said the blaze was expected to be fully surrounded by Thursday.

Slideshow: California wildfires

David Mcnew / Getty Images

Firefighters battle a growing wildfire that reached the beaches in Ventura County and pushes its way toward the upscale city of Malibu.

Launch slideshow

The Panther fire threatened a couple of commercial properties and outbuildings, but it had not destroyed homes, Cal Fire said.

The much larger Springs Fire threatened thousands of homes, but damage was limited to 16 outbuildings and four commercial properties, Cal Fire said, noting that 10 outbuildings had been destroyed.

Weather was expected to continue aiding the firefighters, according to the National Weather Service. The “Red Flag Warnings” that indicate conditions most favorable for wildfires had been lifted for all but the northernmost part of the state by Monday.

The cause of both fires remained under investigation Monday.

Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Bill Nash said last week that there had been no lightning or other natural phenomenon when the Springs Fire started.

In nearby Riverside County, the so-called Summit Fire was fully contained Saturday night after burning more than 3,000 acres, destroying a home and causing two injuries. The cause of it, too, remained under investigation.

Related:

'Incendiary summer': Early fires bode ill for California

This story was originally published on Mon May 6, 2013 6:00 AM EDT

CAMARILLO, Calif. - A flow of damp air from the Pacific Ocean helped firefighters in their battle against a huge wildfire burning through coastal mountains in Southern California.

Fire crews on Saturday worked to create miles of containment lines as the high winds and hot, dry air of recent days were replaced by the normal Pacific air, significantly reducing fire activity.

The 43-square-mile blaze at the western end of the Santa Monica Mountains was 56 percent surrounded. The progress made led authorities to lift evacuation orders for residences in several areas.

"The fire isn't really running and gunning," said Tom Kruschke, a Ventura County Fire Department spokesman.

The humidity level rose so much that an overnight effort to burn away fuel at one section of the fire did not work well, Kruschke said.

There was more good news for Sunday. The National Weather Service said an approaching low pressure system would bring a 20 percent chance of showers in the afternoon, with the likelihood increasing into the night and on Monday.

"Anything we get is going to help us," Kruschke said.

Nearly 2,000 firefighters using engines, bulldozers and aircraft worked to corral the blaze.

Firefighting efforts were focused on the fire's east side, rugged canyons that are a mix of public and private lands, Kruschke said.

David Mcnew / Getty Images

A firefighter surveys burned hills near Hidden Valley at the Springs fire on Saturday near Camarillo, California.

The change in the weather was also expected to bring gusty winds to some parts of Southern California, but well away from the fire area.

Despite its size and speed of growth, the fire that broke out Thursday and quickly moved through neighborhoods of Camarillo Springs and Thousand Oaks has caused damage to just 15 homes, though it has threatened thousands.

The fire also swept through Point Mugu State Park, a hiking and camping area that sprawls between those communities and the ocean. Park district Superintendent Craig Sap told the Ventura County Star that two old, unused ranch-style homes in the backcountry burned. Restrooms and campgrounds also were damaged. Sap estimated repairs would cost $225,000.

The only injuries as of Saturday were a civilian and a firefighter involved in a traffic accident away from the fire.

Residents were grateful so many homes were spared.

"It came pretty close. All of these houses — these firemen did a tremendous job. Very, very thankful for them," Shayne Poindexter said. Flames came within 30 feet of the house he was building.

On Friday, the wildfire reached the ocean, jumped Pacific Coast Highway and burned a Navy base rifle range on the beach at Point Mugu. When winds reversed direction from offshore to onshore, the fire stormed back up canyons toward inland neighborhoods.

The blaze is one of more than 680 wildfires in the state so far this year — about 200 more than average.

East of Los Angeles in Riverside County, a new fire that broke out Saturday afternoon burned 650 acres of wilderness south of Banning. It was 20 percent contained. Banning has been flanked by a nearly 5-square-mile fire to the north which destroyed one home shortly after it broke out Wednesday. That fire was fully contained late Saturday.

In Northern California, a fire that has blackened more than 10 square miles of wilderness in Tehama County was a threat to 10 unoccupied summer homes near the community of Butte Meadows, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Thunderstorms Saturday were expected to bring erratic winds but little rain to the area about 200 miles north of San Francisco.

Nearly 1,300 firefighters were on the lines and the blaze, which started Wednesday, was 20 percent contained.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related: 'Long, hot, incendiary summer': Early wildfires bode ill for California

This story was originally published on Sun May 5, 2013 8:57 AM EDT

Record-setting temperatures, erratic winds and a parched landscape spell a dangerous fire season for California, experts said on Friday as firefighters fought to control several large blazes of a kind that usually would not raise thick plumes of smoke over the horizon until late fall.

“This is definitely a preview of a long, hot, incendiary summer,” said William Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada-Flintridge.

A combination of early, powerful gusts from the inland to the coast, called Santa Ana winds, breathed life into the roaring orange flames that devoured brush and raced down hillsides near Malibu toward the Pacific Ocean on Thursday night. The sea-bound winds pour into the southern part of the state from the northeast and southwest, becoming drier and hotter as they approach the coast, said Stuart Seto, a weather specialist at the National Weather Service in Oxnard, Calif.

This week, “all the ingredients” came together across parts of California, Patzert said.

The Spring Fire in Ventura County was 56 percent contained, Cal Fire said on its Twitter feed Saturday evening, after jumping to 28,000 acres on Friday, shutting down a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway for a time and drawing nearly 1,900 fire personnel, eight helicopters, and a half-dozen air tankers. The fire damaged at least 15 residences and dozens of other structures, NBCLosAngeles reported, citing fire officials.

The Summit Fire in Riverside County was fully contained at about 3,166 acres, Cal Fire said. Riverside County fire officials said two firefighters were injured as they worked to draw a line around the flames, which destroyed one home, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

More than 1,000 firefighters battled a third blaze, the 6,720-acre Panther Fire, in Tehama County.

“At this point it’s just a question of meteorology, of the Santa Anas, and of course in Southern California 95 percent of the fires are human (caused),” Patzert said. “Fire is fuel plus meteorology plus ignition.”

Many California residents in areas prone to wildfires have known the fear of watching flames lick the borders of their property, but in the past wide-scale destructive fires usually have not struck until summer or fall. A series of 22 major fires across seven Southern California counties destroyed more than 2,200 homes in 2007 – but those fires lasted over three weeks from October to November, according to a report by the Orange County Fire Authority.

The 2009 Station Fire burned over 160,000 acres, destroyed 80 structures, and killed two county firefighters. That fire, the largest in Los Angeles County history, wasn't sparked until late August, according to an after action review. The cost to fully contain the Station Fire topped $95 million, the U.S. Fire Service reported.

“This is certainly one of the earliest fire seasons I remember,” Patzert said.

Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters

Firefighters battle the Springs Fire at Point Mugu State Park on May 3. A wind-driven wildfire raged along the California coast north of Los Angeles early on Friday.

Firefighters around Camarillo contended with unpredictable Santa Ana winds as flames threatened residences on Thursday and Friday. Such winds drive from inland to the sea, but they usually occur during the fall and winter months.

“We’re having Santa Ana events in May,” Capt. Mike Lindberry of the Ventura County Fire Department said on Thursday. “An event like this … it hasn’t happened in my career.”

Those winds make it harder for firefighters to corral the flames as they leap across scrubby, uninhabited areas.

“The winds are just super strong. They couldn’t get ahead of the fire because the winds are so strong, and the heat was tremendous,” said Seto.

Extremely dry conditions for this time of year have also contributed to the growth of the fires, Seto said. The dryness of the vegetation that fueled the flames in the Camarillo area was comparable to what is usually measured in July, he said.

Temperatures hit a record high for the date of 98 degrees in Camarillo on Thursday, Seto said, topping the previous high of 94 degrees in 2004. Normal for this time of May is about 74 degrees, he said.

While parts of the Plains states and upper Midwest saw late-season snowfall earlier this week, officials in California have said that the state's snowpack is lighter than normal. That means the amount of water that flows into state reservoirs over coming months will be less than usual as the snow melts.

“I’m finding nothing,” Frank Gehrke, chief surveyor for the Department of Water Resources, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “Seriously, there is no snow on the course at all.” The water content in California’s high-altitude snow turned out to be only 17 percent of what it usually is, the department reported.

Fire officials have been warning about the dangerous fire conditions in California for several months. After an 100-acre brush fire flared up in Monrovia in April, city fire Chief Chris Donovan told reporters that experts anticipated a “very dry – and very bad” season.

A wildfire outlook produced by the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, predicted “above normal” fire potential for Southern California, the Sacramento Valley and parts of southern Oregon in May. The likelihood of significant fires will expand through Washington, Arizona, New Mexico and other large swaths of California over the summer months, according to the fire center’s outlook.

“This big picture is across the country it’s been sort of two winters, as the Northeast and the Midwest had a never-ending winter with spring that just didn’t want to show up,” Patzert said. Meanwhile, in Southern California, “the rain spigot essentially just turned off in January.”

“It’s a no-brainer to tell you that it is going to be a busy fire season,” he said.

Slideshow: California wildfires

Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters

A fire engine is parked on Pacific Coast Highway as the Springs Fire burns in the hills at Point Mugu State Park on May 3.

Launch slideshow

Related:

• 'Monster' California wildfire reaches ocean, pushes toward Malibu
• 12-square-mile Springs Fire spreads toward Ventura County Coast
• Thousands in Calif. wildfire's path evacuated

Slideshow: California wildfires

Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters

A fire engine is parked on Pacific Coast Highway as the Springs Fire burns in the hills at Point Mugu State Park on May 3.

Launch slideshow

Southern California firefighters battled back a series of sprawling, brush-fueled wildfires on Friday, including one that had blazed a trail to the beach in Ventura County overnight and was pushing toward the upscale city of Malibu, officials said.

At least six fires of various sizes flared up as high temperatures, low humidity and brittle brush left the state a veritable tinderbox over the last two days, although conditions were improving by the afternoon.

The so-called Springs Fire, made worse by howling Santa Ana winds and unusually dry vegetation, crept within "seven or eight miles" of Malibu around 2 a.m. local time [5 a.m. ET], Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Bill Nash said.

"We've got hot, dirty, unglamorous firefighting work going on right now, guys with shovels trying to scratch out lines on the ground," Nash said in the early hours of Friday. "We've got those guys on these steep hillsides in the dark with nothing but the light of the fire and a flashlight."

Dry winds from inland to the ocean brought gusts of 40 to 50 miles per hour to the Southern California region on Friday. By 1 p.m Pacific time, the temperatures had dropped 11 degrees and the humidity shot up to 19 percent. Warnings remained in effect as winds stoked the flames, the National Weather Service reported.

“We’re looking good,” Battalion Chief Fred Burris of the Ventura County Fire Department said on Friday, according to NBC Los Angeles. “We believe we’re past the major structure threat at this time.”

The Springs Fire grew to 10,000 acres and was 10 percent contained as of early Friday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention.

An eight-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway was shut down for a time on Thursday night as bright orange flames raced down scrubby hillsides toward the Pacific Ocean.

“We are asking members of the public to be very aware: This is very dangerous,” said Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Tom Kruschke. “This is still a moving fire. If you were asked to evacuate, it will be a while before you are allowed in. And if at one point you are uncomfortable, please leave the area. It’s not safe to stay.”

“The firemen have been doing a really great job of keeping it away from the houses,” said Sara Mallam, a resident of Newbury Park, near Thousand Oaks, Calif. “It is kind of scary to see it get so close, but they really seem to know what they’re doing.”

Though the more than 925 firefighters on the scene got a brief overnight reprieve as the humidity jumped and winds died down, winds picked up again after sunrise on Friday.

Firefighters received help from tankers and helicopters in the air after the sun rose on Friday, according to a release from the Ventura County Fire Department.

Complicating the situation is the extremely dry plant life left from a season in which only about five inches of rain fell, officials said.

Friday "may be the hottest day of the week, and the humidity we do expect to plummet," Nash said. "We’re faced with a situation right now where the vegetation on the hillsides, the moisture level is what we typically see in August."

The cause of the fire remained under investigation Friday. There had been no lightning or other natural fire-starting phenomenon in the area when the blaze began, Nash said.

In Riverside County, hundreds of firefighters had begun to gain control of a wind-lashed 3,000-acre wildfire that consumed one home and led to the evacuation of hundreds of others.

The Riverside County fire, dubbed the Summit Fire, remained at just under 3,000 acres Friday morning and was about 65 percent contained, according to a Cal Fire incident report. Firefighters worked to improve containment lines around the raging blaze that threatened homes on Wednesday, but one building had been destroyed.

Two of the 650 firefighters trying to tame the blaze sustained non-life-threatening injuries, according to the report.

Additionally, more than 1,000 firefighters were battling a third major wildfire, designated the Panther Fire, Friday in rugged timberland in Northern California’s Tehama County about 30 miles east of Chico.

NBC News' Jeff Black contributed to this report.

Related:

• Thousands in Calif. wildfire's path evacuated
• 'Monster' California wildfire reaches ocean, pushes toward Malibu
• 12-square-mile Springs Fire spreads toward Ventura County coast

This story was originally published on Thu May 2, 2013 9:46 AM EDT

A wind-whipped brushfire spread over 170 acres overnight in Ventura County, Calif., destroying two homes and threatening about 100 more, and was still not contained as of early Tuesday morning.

The fire began with a fire in a mobile home around 3:15 p.m. on Monday, fire officials said. That home sustained damage to its roof, but was not entirely destroyed. About 400 firefighters responded as the blaze spread, with officials saying that they hoped slackening winds overnight would help them control the flames.

“I can see flames and some smoke and helicopters coming in and dropping of their water,” Judi Ortiz, an employee at a local gas station, told NBCLosAngeles.com. “You couldn’t see anything at the beginning but smoke. It’s horrific.”

Driven by 40-mph winds, the city engulfed an orchard near the city of Fillmore, north of Los Angeles.

“A couple years back we had some pretty bad fires, but nothing that came close to homes like this,” Fillmore Mayor Pro Tem Manuel Minjares told NBCLosAngeles.com. “This is pretty significant.”

No injuries have been reported as a result of the fire. Authorities lifted a mandatory evacuation order on about 160 homes early on Tuesday morning, saying they hoped to have the fire contained by sun up.