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The wildfire, in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, burned more than 600 acres in just a few hours on Monday. About 5,000 people were ordered to leave their homes.
Juniper fire evacuation zones
June 30, 2025Updated 7:28 p.m. ET
About 5,000 residents of Riverside County, Calif., east of Los Angeles, were under an evacuation order on Monday because of a quickly spreading wildfire, the authorities said.
The blaze, called the Juniper fire, began just before 11:30 a.m. on Monday and swiftly burned more than 600 acres, according to Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting agency. The cause of the fire, which was burning about 70 miles southeast of central Los Angeles, was still being investigated, the agency said.
The evacuation orders, which were issued in the afternoon, affect just over 5,000 residents of Riverside County, based on a New York Times analysis of the evacuation zones and LandScan population data. The fire is in an unincorporated county area west of the city of Perris, according to the Riverside County Fire Department. A spokesman for the city of Perris referred inquiries to the Fire Department.
The Juniper fire is one of three blazes in Riverside County that local officials are trying to contain. The Wolf fire, which began on Sunday, has burned more than 1,400 acres. The authorities reported that it was 10 percent contained as of Monday afternoon. The Mindy fire, which also began on Sunday, was mostly contained after burning about 100 acres, and all evacuation orders associated with it have been lifted.
Summer is typically the worst season for wildfires in California, as the atmosphere dries up and temperatures rise. Though it can be difficult to predict wildfire activity, forecasters have already seen signs that this could be an especially intense year, with plenty of dry grass to fuel potential fires.
In Southern California, conditions were especially dry this winter, setting the stage for more and larger fires this summer. By September, officials predict fire activity across most of the state will be above normal this year.
On average, about 1.4 million acres burn a year in California, but there have been varying totals in recent years. More than 4.3 million acres burned in 2020, when dry lightning — lightning without nearby rainfall — sparked an outbreak of wildfires across Northern California, but in 2022 and 2023, only about 300,000 acres burned each year.
The Juniper fire started as residents of Los Angeles County were still reeling from the devastating wildfires in January. The Eaton fire destroyed more than 9,400 structures, mostly in the community of Altadena in Los Angeles County, and burned about 14,000 acres. To the west, the Palisades fire destroyed more than 6,800 structures in Malibu and the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, and burned more than 23,000 acres.
A total of 30 people died in the Eaton and Palisades fires, making the fire event the second-deadliest in California history. The Camp fire killed 85 people in Northern California in 2018, more than any other single wildfire in the state’s history, according to Cal Fire.
Amy Graff, John Keefe and Jesus Jiménez contributed reporting.
Sopan Deb is a Times reporter covering breaking news and culture.
