By Holly Yan, Brandon Miller, Amanda Musa, Emma Tucker and Josh Campbell, CNN

(CNN) — Exhausted firefighters battling deadly infernos for weeks are now grappling with two new wildfires torching Southern California.

The good news: The latest blaze, the Sepulveda Fire near Interstate 405 and Sepulveda Boulevard in Los Angeles, has stopped moving forward, the city’s fire department said Thursday morning.

About 250 firefighters “jumped on this very quickly, and we were able to keep it to only 40 acres” after it started late Wednesday, said firefighter David Ortiz, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department. “The Santa Ana winds are blowing against this fire, so we had that in our favor.”

Firefighters are now making sure “we don’t leave anything hot that can later be carried by the wind,” Ortiz said.

But the fast-moving Hughes Fire that ignited Wednesday morning has already torched more than 10,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The inferno was only 14% contained as of early Thursday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, also known as Cal Fire.

The Hughes Fire is north of Santa Clarita, near the unincorporated community of Castaic.

About 31,000 area residents were under evacuation orders and 23,000 under evacuation warnings Wednesday evening due to the Hughes Fire, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.

As of early Thursday morning, “we don’t have any reports of structure damage or injuries,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief David Acuna said. “As we transition in the morning, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.”

But the National Weather Service extended a red-flag warning through Friday morning for most of Los Angeles and Ventura counties as Santa Ana winds push through the area, Marrone said.

And bone-dry vegetation means a new fire could ignite and any moment.

“We’re still expecting some dry humidity and then gusts of winds possible up to 60 mph,” Ortiz said. “It’s super dry. Any one spark will have a new start of a fire that establishes an raises quickly.”

‘Dangerous fire weather conditions’

The Hughes Fire started just before 11 a.m. Wednesday near Castaic Lake, north of where fire crews are working to fully contain the Palisades and Eaton fires that have scorched more than 40,000 acres and left at least 28 dead since they began January 7.

The fire is “a completely different beast” to the Palisades and Eaton fires, Los Angeles County fire Capt. Sheila Kelliher told CNN Wednesday evening. Two weeks ago, firefighters faced extreme challenges as powerful winds grounded aerial support.

Calmer winds allowed the fire department’s helicopters to carry out water drops at night, Kelliher said.

When asked about potential water supply issues, Kelliher said crews are fortunate to have direct access to Castaic Lake and other nearby reservoirs for their firefighting efforts.

But “dangerous fire weather conditions will persist through Friday as fuels remain extremely dry and ready to burn, with Thursday the period of greatest concern,” the National Weather Service in Los Angeles said. “Any fire that starts can grow fast and out of control.”

Treacherous mudslides and ‘toxic’ debris flow could be next

Much of Southern California is expected to get doused with desperately needed rainfall this weekend – but this could unleash new hazards.

The Los Angeles and San Diego areas will get more rain this weekend than in the last six months combined. A half-inch to 3/4 of an inch of rain is expected to fall from Saturday to Sunday on the main burn scars of the Palisades and Eaton fires, the National Weather Service said.

While that might not sound like a lot, Los Angeles has seen only 0.03 inches of rain since October 1 – far less than the average of 5.5 inches from October to January. The rain expected this weekend will be the first drops in January, and they will fall quickly over charred land that can’t absorb water.

“A lot of that rain may fall in a relatively short amount of time,” said Ariel Cohen, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles. That torrent will lead to “the possibility of at least shallow debris flows, mudslides and landslides,” Cohen said.

“The burn scars, with the widespread loss of trees, shrubs and vegetation, will have a much lower capability of handling the rain and will be more susceptible for failure,” he said. “It behaves more like cement; the ground can’t accept the water, so it all goes to runoff immediately.”

That means fast-moving rivers of mud, rock and fire debris could gush downhill. The debris flows could be damaging, “taking down other structures and certainly be a threat to life and property,” Cohen said.

Burnt structural rubble, other charred debris and the soil beneath them can contain toxic chemicals, which could take months to remove.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an emergency order this week “to shore up burn areas and to mitigate the serious health and environmental impacts of fire-related hazardous pollutants on the stormwater system, beaches and ocean,” the mayor’s office said.

“I’m directing city crews to swiftly install reinforced concrete barriers, lay down sandbags and clear debris to shore up burn areas and stem the flow of toxins,” Bass said in a release. “These communities have already endured unimaginable loss – we are taking action against further harm.”

The director of Los Angeles County Public Works said the county is ready.

“As the rain approaches LA County, Public Works will mobilize 24/7 storm patrols. All flood control dams and channels have been prepared for storm, and stormwater capture facilities prepared to operate,” Director Mark Pestrella said Wednesday.

“Our crews are clearing debris from streets, cleaning and preparing debris basins, deploying sandbags and other systems to keep runoff with ash and other burnt debris from entering the storm drain system.”

While the county is leading the local effort to prevent landslides and mudslides, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are leading debris removal efforts, Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said.

Hughes Fire forces jail and school evacuations

With the rain still a couple days away, parched conditions keep fueling the Hughes Fire.

A county jail in Castaic has been partially evacuated, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. The jail is just south of the fire area and can hold as many as 4,295 inmates.

About 470 inmates were evacuated from one of the three facilities on the campus and moved to another part of the detention center, the sheriff said. The other two facilities are “structured much better” than the one that was evacuated, Luna said.

“We do have a plan in place … to evacuate the rest of the inmates on the entire facility if we absolutely had to,” Luna said Wednesday, without elaborating.

Meanwhile, all Castaic Middle School and Castaic High School students were evacuated Wednesday to a Ralph’s supermarket parking lot, according to the California Highway Patrol. Students from North Lake Elementary were evacuated to the Castaic Sports Complex, the agency said on X.

The Valencia and Canyon Country campuses of College of the Canyons were closed Wednesday and Thursday as a “precautionary measure” because of the Hughes Fire, the college said on its website.

Smoke was visible Wednesday as far south as Oxnard, a city in Ventura County located about 50 miles southwest of Castaic, city officials said.

CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas, Eric Zerkel, Hanna Park and Robert Shackelford contributed to this report.

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