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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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LOS ANGELES - Two wildfires driven by strong Santa Ana winds threatened neighbourhoods near Los Angeles on Monday, killing a man, destroying several dozen mobile homes and forcing evacuations.

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Dan Steinberg/the associated press

Two Los Angeles City Fire Department firefighters help to evacuate an elderly woman from an approaching brush fire as her family looks on in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles on Monday. Intense Santa Ana winds swept into Southern California Monday morning and whipped up a 3,700-acre wildfire, burning mobile homes and industrial buildings and forcing the evacuation of eight patients from a nearby hospital.

Firefighters were struggling with a 1,500-hectare blaze in the San Fernando Valley's northeastern corner when a new blaze erupted at midmorning a few kilometres to the west in mountains above the Porter Ranch area and quickly grew to 300 hectares.

"It is a blowtorch we can't get in front of," said Los Angeles County fire Inspector Frank Garrido.

Fire officials could not immediately estimate how many homes in Porter Ranch were in the fire's path. Flames burned furiously at midday just across a road from one development of luxury homes. Fire officials alerted other communities as far south as Malibu.

The fatality occurred at the first fire, where neighbourhoods abut rugged canyonlands below the mountainous Angeles National forest. The victim was a man who appeared to be a transient living in a makeshift shelter, officials said.

About 1,200 people were evacuated because of the Marek Fire, which was just five per cent contained.

Los Angeles County fire Capt. Mark Savage said 37 or 38 mobile homes were destroyed by that blaze early Monday.

Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, the hospital closest to the Marek Fire, evacuated eight of its most fragile patients to other hospitals.