GEYSERVILLE, Calif. • Fast-growing fires throughout California forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes Thursday as dry winds and high heat fed both the flames and fears in a state still jittery from devastating wildfires in the last two years.

Officials said they did not yet know how many homes had burned and that no immediate injuries were reported.

It’s not clear how any of the blazes began.

In Northern California wine country, authorities ordered 2,000 people to evacuate as a wildfire exploded to more than 15 square miles, whipped up by the strong winds that prompted utilities statewide to impose blackouts to prevent such fires from igniting.

Officials ordered an evacuation of the entire community of Geyserville, home to about 900 people and a popular stop for wine country tourists, along with nearby residents.

The blaze threatened some of the area’s famed wineries and the River Rock Casino as the blaze raged on the outskirts of town.

In Southern California, a wall of flame rolled along the parched foothills north of Los Angeles, where thousands of homes have sprung up in recent decades.

Officials told people to flee along a mileslong stretch of Santa Clarita, where the fire quickly consumed more than a square mile of dry brush and threatened homes.

Winds gusting to about 40 mph pushed the blaze as enormous plumes of smoke visible for miles covered neighborhoods.

A second fire broke out about 10 miles away, racing up a hillside to the edge of a neighborhood in Castaic and burning at least two houses.

People used hoses to try to protect their properties.

Until now, the focus of California’s wildfire season had been on power outages that utilities said were necessary to stop high winds over the coming days from toppling power lines and starting fires.

But the season kicked into higher gear Thursday with the arrival of raging fires and the need to quickly escape them.

A series of deadly blazes tore through the same area in Northern California wine country two years ago, killing 44 people.

Among those fleeing Geyserville was 81-year-old Harry Bosworth, who awoke before sunrise to find a firetruck and firefighters in his driveway.

As he and his wife drove off, flames surrounded their driveway and their barn caught fire.

“I could see the fire coming, so we got the heck out of there,” Bosworth said after escaping to his daughter’s house in the neighboring town of Healdsburg.

Julia Jackson of Geyserville-based Jackson Family Wines, which owns more than 40 wine labels and thousands of acres of vineyards, posted on Instagram that her home was “burnt down to the ground.”

“Stuff is just stuff. Thank God I’m alive,” she wrote.

Another Geyserville evacuee, Isaac Hale, said he woke up to the sound of authorities ordering him out.

Embers fly across a roadway Thursday as the Kincade fire burns through the Jimtown community of Sonoma County, Calif.

the associated press