Hughes Fire breaks out near Castaic Lake as strong winds, dry conditions linger across SoCal

Crews are gaining an upper hand on the Hughes Fire, which has not yet damaged or destroyed any structures, officials confirmed.

L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said approximately 4,000 firefighting personnel have been assigned to battle the blaze, which has charred more than 9,000 acres by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Fortunately, no structures were destroyed or damaged by the fire. And the fire chief intends to keep it that way.

He said there are plans in place for crews to stay on the scene throughout the night to gain more perimeter control and to attack any hot spots that may erupt.

A red flag warning was extended Wednesday afternoon and is now in effect through Friday morning for most of Los Angeles and Ventura counties due to extremely low humidity and offshore wind gusts, according to the National Weather Service.

The windy conditions are expected to strengthen or expand Wednesday night or Thursday morning, with winds peaking Thursday. The winds will increase to 20 to 30 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph by Thursday. The winds are expected to gradually decrease Thursday night into Friday.

Humidity will be extremely low with minimums under 10% and poor overnight recovery.

"While the winds will gradually weaken and shrink in coverage Thursday night through Friday morning, pockets of gusty winds and widespread extremely dry conditions will maintain Red Flag Warning conditions through Friday morning," the weather service said in an alert.

Flames from the massive Hughes Fire were seen inching extremely close to a local water treatment facility on Wednesday.

AIR7 flying overhead captured video of flames directly along the border of the Earl Schmidt Filtration Plant, which is located along Lake Hughes Road in Castaic.

The plant is part of the mandatory evacuation zone.

New video shows a view of the Hughes Fire from space.

The footage was captured around 2:17 p.m. from a 4K camera platform on the International Space Station. It was posted on the ISS Above X account.

New video shows a view of the Hughes Fire from space.