SAN FRANCISCO — A fast-moving fire fed by strong winds burned two homes Friday and damaged several others in a hillside neighborhood in the city of Oakland, where roughly 500 people were ordered to evacuate, officials said.

Fire Chief Damon Covington said that at about 1:30 p.m., calls came in reporting a fire in front of a home in the Oakland hills. Crews arrived as the inferno quickly grew with winds ranging from calm breezes to 40 mph gusts during red flag conditions.

“Wind was whipping,” Covington said.

Michael Hunt, a spokesperson for the fire department, said one of the homes was significantly burned while the second suffered minor damage from the flames. Fewer than 10 other homes had smoke and water damage. Early reports had conflicting numbers of impacted structures.

The fire was near the 580 Freeway, which connects the San Francisco Bay Area to central California, causing traffic jams as people tried to leave the area and smoke wafted over the city of 440,000.

The blaze charred through eucalyptus trees, which spread the fire as flames jumped across sides of the roadway, Covington said. Within three hours, it grew to to 13 acres. By about 4 p.m. crews were able to stop it from advancing, though scores of firefighters continued to battle.

“We have less than 10 homes that have been damaged, and we had hundreds of homes, structures, that were threatened,” the chief said.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

Authorities issued red flag warnings for fire danger until Saturday across a large swath of the state, from the central coast through the Bay Area and into northern Shasta County, not far from the Oregon border.

A California utility shut off power in 19 counties in the northern and central part of the state as a major “ diablo wind “ — notorious in autumn for its hot, dry gusts — spiked the risk of wildfire.

The blaze in the Oakland Hills burned a day before the Oct. 19 anniversary of a 1991 fire that destroyed nearly 3,000 homes and killed 25 people.

Smoke was visible Friday 2 to 3 miles away. Firetrucks and ambulances struggled to get through the gridlock in the freeway’s westbound lanes, their sirens blasting to get vehicles to move out of their way as they raced toward the blaze. The traffic frustrated some drivers enough that they exited the roadway through on-ramps, while others drove on the freeway’s shoulder. The side streets remained heavily gridlocked as well.

Red flag warnings were also issued in parts of Southern California where another brush fire was burning toward homes in the Rolling Heights area of Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.

The fire was reported around 3:00 p.m. in the Hacienda Heights hills where firefighters on the ground and in the air were trying to stop the 5-acre blaze from reaching nearby homes, the department said. No evacuations have been ordered.

About 16,000 customers were without electricity Friday after Pacific Gas and Electric shut off power.

During a diablo wind, the air is so dry that relative humidity levels plunge, drying out vegetation and making it ready to burn.