Wildfire evacuation zone grows, unclear if 5,000-person jail complex will evacuate

A rapidly growing fire near the Castaic jail complex sparked alarm Wednesday morning, as attorneys urged the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to evacuate the nearly 5,000 inmates in the county’s northernmost jails.

By mid-afternoon, sheriff’s officials began moving several hundred inmates from a barracks-style facility at the Castaic complex to a brick facility located at the same complex. Barely an hour later, the fire had spread so much that both facilities were in the evacuation zone. It was not immediately clear whether an evacuation was planned.

The Hughes fire broke out a little before 11 a.m., roughly 5 miles north of the Pitchess Detention Center.

“No evacuations have been ordered yet,” the department said at 10:58 a.m., minutes after the blaze began. “The facilities are aware and will take appropriate action as necessary.”

But the blaze soon ballooned to more than 3,000 acres, and by noon, lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California — which represents inmates in two class-action lawsuits against the jails — began reaching out to county officials to urge action.

At 11:53 a.m., Melissa Camacho, an ACLU Southern California senior staff attorney, emailed Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s justice deputy, Sandra Croxton with her concerns.

“I hope that you and Supervisor Barger can put immediate pressure on LASD to start evacuating the four jails immediately,” Camacho wrote. “I would imagine that there are about 1,000 LASD staff up there too, though that’s only a guess. But you’re definitely looking at well over 5,000 people to evacuate. It’s simply too many people to evacuate to wait for an evacuation order or even a warning, especially with only about 20 buses available that are likely spread around the county right now.”

For years, the Sheriff’s Department has struggled with a shortage of inmate transport buses, due to an aging fleet that has become increasingly difficult to repair. By late last year, officials told The Times that only 20 of its 82 buses were operational.

Though the county approved funding for 20 new buses in September 2023, the first did not arrive until December. Officials say the remaining buses are slated to arrive every few weeks until the order is expected to be complete in August.

It’s not clear how an evacuation would work, but department officials said they could potentially use state and other local resources.

By 12:20 p.m. Wednesday, the department said it was not yet evacuating the complex, but that day shift deputies and jailers had been asked to stay late — both to help in the event of an evacuation at the jails, and to assist with evacuations in parts of Santa Clarita affected by the blaze.

As of late last year, department data shows the Castaic jail complex housed roughly 4,700 people, including at least 1,200 with diagnosed mental health issues.

“It’s the highest concentration of people in the area,” Camacho told The Times. “They don’t have enough buses to take people to court — they certainly don’t have enough buses to move them all at once for an evacuation.”

By 1 p.m., the fire had spread to more than 5,000 acres. The L.A. County Public Defenders Union issued a statement on social media calling for the facilities to be evacuated.

“We demand that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff’s Department take swift action to protect the lives of the thousands of incarcerated individuals entrusted to their care,” the statement said. “We are deeply alarmed by the imminent risk this disaster poses to the health and safety of our clients. They must not be neglected or abandoned during this critical moment.”

Twenty minutes later, the department said it had redirected several of its still-operational buses to the area and begun moving roughly 400 inmates from the tent-like barracks at Pitchess Detention Center to the nearby North County Correctional Facility.

By 2:30 p.m., both facilities fell within the evacuation zone, which extended to The Old Road to the west and Newhall Ranch Road to the south. The department said it was “evaluating the situation” to determine whether to evacuate further.