No emergency outages after Santa Ana winds prompted Southern California fire danger warnings
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(CNN) — Three people were killed in a fire in northern California because of hot and dry conditions, officials said Saturday.
The blaze was sparked early Saturday morning by strong gusty winds that shifted from the east to the west near Lake County, California.
It spread quickly and firefighters were first called to the area of Lake Elsinore at around 3 a.m. Saturday. They could hear a loud explosion inside the building.
The fire was still holding at the time.
No one in the building was injured, officials said.
By Saturday afternoon, the Cal Fire official said three people were dead in the fire and another five were missing. Three people were still missing by Friday night.
The California fire department said Sunday that the fire “had burned through three separate buildings” and the cause of the fire was under investigation.
The flames were seen on the ground as the blaze was still burning as of 9:30 a.m.
Three people died in the fire, according to fire department officials.
Authorities were still trying to determine what caused the blaze and why it started in three separate buildings in the rural community that is roughly 10 miles north of Los Angeles.
“Right now it’s still under investigation,” Cal Fire Lt. Matt Crain said Friday. “It’s hard because we have seen that we had a fire start inside one of the buildings. The structure of the buildings and the cause of the fire hasn’t been decided.”
The cause of the fire was under investigation, Cal Fire officials said.
Five children from the church were rescued by firefighters Friday night and taken to a hospital. One child’s parents were at the scene as well, officials said Sunday.
The fire broke out in the basement of the building, which was built in the 1920s, officials said.