Several large, fast moving wildfires have been burning across the southern part of California, torching nearly 120,000 acres in and near Los Angeles this week. Heavy winds have been tampering efforts to control the blaze, as winds hit 130km/hr in the region on Thursday.

Moose Javian Tracey Moody is in Goleta, California for a vacation and is only a couple kilometres from the blaze.

"It's very smoky and it's quite hard to breathe right now." said Moody. "They're telling people with respiratory issues to stay inside."

The latest update is that the fires continues to burn actively with extreme rates of spread with 9,000 homes without power and officials have shut down hundreds of schools.