A firefighter stands by as two mobile homes go up in flames early Monday morning, north of Los Angeles. Intense Santa Ana winds swept into Southern California Monday and whipped up a 3,700-acre wildfire, burning mobile homes and industrial buildings and forcing the evacuation of eight patients from a nearby hospital.

Ted Rowlands | Bio
CNN Los Angeles Correspondent

Firefighters say a man and his dog died under a homemade shelter trying to ride out one of the wind-driven fires burning in Southern California.

He died overnight when the Santa Ana winds kicked into full gear.

I've covered a lot of fires, many with more devastating consequences, but I've never seen winds like this. Usually only hurricane winds are strong enough to knock us off the air. But our truck, which is "rated" to withstand 65-mile-per-hour winds lost its ability to transmit because of winds hitting 70 miles per hour.

Firefighters are having a terrible time, too. When the gusts are up, the helicopters and planes have been grounded.

This fire hasn't killed anyone else so far, besides the man and his dog, though it has destroyed about a dozen homes and about 3500 acres, mostly in the Angeles National Forest.

A second blaze nearby has destroyed 750 acres, and forced evacuations.

Forecasters expect the winds to get even more intense overnight, meaning the worst may be yet to come.