Flames and smoke signaled the start of another fire around 10:45am in Los Angeles County on Wednesday.

This one, near Castaic Lake.

As of Wednesday night, nearly 31,000 people are under evacuation orders with another 2,300 under evacuation warnings.

The Hughe Fire hit close to home for a familiar face to our viewers, former FOX26 News Reporter Sophia Lesseos.

As we spoke with her, there were huge plumes of smoke right behind her.

“He was saying, like, I’m scared. Like, there’s so much smoke. Like, you could barely see the house right now when he got home,” said Lesseos, as she recalls what her nephew was seeing.

Apocalyptic is the word Sophia described as she was on her way to help her boyfriend’s family.

Her boyfriend’s family took swift action and hosed down the house, placing sprinklers on it as a preventative measure.

And, it wasn’t just homeowners who were scrambling to leave.

Some drivers along I-5 were also in a rush, to get out of harm’s way.

“It was almost down to zero visibility and everybody was in full panic mode,” said Johnnie Berumen, a trucker from Tulare.

He says he barely crossed in time to return to the valley.

Caltrans eventually closed I-5 in both directions.

Berumen says, “There was no way to get to or from Southern California.”

And while he’s driven through fog, he says it doesn’t compare to the danger of driving through this.

He said, “It’s definitely worse than fog, especially with the wind and the smoke. So, it’s zero visibility when it’s that bad…it went from 500 acres to over 5000 in less than an hour and that’s pretty extreme.”