Firefighters Ready For Busy Fire Season Following Record Rainfall That Doubled Brush Growth

MORENO VALLEY (CBSLA) — Firefighters are expecting to spend all summer chasing smaller fast-moving fires.

Record rainfall this winter made the brush across much of Southern California double in size.

"It's very light grass, so it's going to burn very fast," said a firefighter at the scene of a brush fire that broke out in Moreno Valley Friday morning.

The 522-acre fire burned very close to a handful of homes in Riverside County, leading to the evacuation of 12 residences. One structure and a horse trailer were destroyed.

Luckily, the crews in Moreno Valley were only facing winds with speeds of 13-14 mph. In Hisperia, where a similar brush fire started Thursday morning, wind gusts were expected to hit 50-60 mph throughout the weekend.

The dry, windy conditions prompted Southern California Edison to alert families in the area that they may experience public safety power outages through Saturday to prevent fires started by downed fire lines.

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As of 11 p.m., the brush fire in Moreno Valley was reported to be at least 20% contained, but crews were expected to be on scene throughout the night.