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A fast-moving brush fire that erupted in the hillsides near Murrieta and forced thousands of residents to evacuate grew to 1,400 acres overnight, state fire officials said early Thursday.

More than 500 firefighters have been assigned to the Tenaja fire in Riverside County, which broke out about 4 p.m. Wednesday near Tenaja and Clinton Keith roads on a day marked by thunderstorms in the region.

The fire burned all the way down to the Copper Canyon neighborhood in Murrieta overnight, but crews were able to stop the flames before any homes were damaged, said Capt. Fernando Herrera, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“The fire probably came within a couple thousand feet of homes,” he said.

No structures have been damaged, and no injuries have been reported. The cause of the fire has not been determined.

Humid conditions and water drops from helicopters allowed firefighters to gain the upper hand overnight. While helicopters fought the fire from the sky, crews cut fire breaks ahead of blaze in an effort to slow its movement.

“That gave us a huge advantage,” Herrera said of the helicopter’s efforts overnight. “We were successful in at least knocking down the heavy flames and heat. The fire is laying down right now.”

Firefighters had boosted containment of the inferno to 7% by early Thursday.

Firefighters, however, were
faced with erratic winds gusting up to 20 mph and temperatures reaching into the 90s on Thursday. The heat could further dry out dense grass and brush in the region, priming the fuel for burning, said Jimmy Taeger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.

Showers and thunderstorms were
developing again in the mountain areas on Thursday
afternoon, but the potential for any storms to affect the fire area is low, Taeger said.

“As long as that weather pattern remains it means there’s potential for the fire to blow up again and gather some speed,” Herrera said.

The National Weather Service on Thursday afternoon tweeted satellite imagery showing the thunderstorms and the heat signature of the fire. By about 1 p.m., the fire had begun to generate pyrocumulus clouds.

“Oftentimes, when a fire is really intense and the environmental conditions are favorable enough, you’ll get essentially clouds forming right where the plume rises,” said Bruno Rodriguez, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego. “Typically we’ll see it on larger fires where the burning is more intense because you have more heat production, and therefore the increased heat production results in a stronger updraft to raise that plume higher and make it more likely to develop into a cloud at higher altitudes.”

Four helicopters and least four air tankers have been assigned to drop water and fire retardant in the area. Rugged terrain in the area continues to be a challenge for crews on the ground, meaning officials will be relying heavily on air resources, Herrera said.

In just a few hours on Wednesday, the fire had chewed through nearly 1,000 acres in unincorporated Riverside County and began its trek northeast toward Murrieta.

The speed of the blaze and its proximity to homes prompted officials to order evacuations of houses along the Trails Circle in La Cresta and Copper Canyon, as well as the Santa Rosa Plateau Visitor Center on Clinton Keith Road. Evacuations are still in place for more than 400 homes in the area.

Residents of Murrieta’s Bear Creek community are under voluntary evacuation. Campuses in the Murrieta Valley Unified School District will be closed Thursday because of the fire.

The blaze erupted toward the end of a remarkably calm summer in terms of wildfires.

After two years of devastating wildfires that burned more than 1.8-million acres in 2018 and 1.2-million acres in 2017, as of Aug. 18, only 51,079 acres had burned this year across state and federal lands in California.

Late spring rains, cooler summer temperatures and fewer extreme wind events, among other factors, have combined to help keep the state from burning uncontrollably, experts say.

But weary fire officials know that can change at any moment — all it takes is an intense wind event or a prolonged heat wave and then a spark.

In the Murrieta area, ash fell like snow as police patrol cars with lights flashing cruised slowly through neighborhoods to announce evacuations Wednesday evening. The blaze cast an orange glow on the hillsides above homes.

Beth Maranville, 59, of Murrieta was standing near a ridge in Oakhurst Estates watching the fire grow closer to homes. Maranville had watched the fire when it was farther away near La Cresta and was shocked at how quickly it had burned through brush.

About 8 p.m., law enforcement officers came through the area and asked Maranville and others to voluntarily evacuate, she said.

“I just saw the lights go out from the house that’s closest,” Maranville said. “They had already wet their house down. It’s not looking good, but we’ve prayed, and we’re going to trust God.”