LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26 – Fires blazed through tinder-dry brush today in Southern California leaving tens of thousands of acres charred and expensive homes in ashes.

Firemen faced more of the infamous, fire-fanning “devil winds,” hot and dry seaward blasts from the desert which whipped the dozens of fires into fast-moving infernos after they started Friday.

More than 57,000 acres were blackened, an estimated 140 homes destroyed and as many as 400 homes damaged.

There were numerous reports of burns and other injuries to firemen and residents but no deaths.

Actor Dale Robertson’s home was destroyed, fire officials said, and the blazes damaged Gov. Ronald Reagan’s ranch and the Spahn movie ranch.

The two most destructive blazes crackled in Malibu Canyon, a fashionable scenic area on the coast about 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles, and in western San Fernando Valley, a largely residential area about 25 miles northwest.

The valley and Malibu fires merged after about 16 hours and after the Malibu blaze had reached the Pacific Ocean’s edge. A third fire, around Agua, northeast of the valley, burned toward the starting point of the valley blaze.

It was the worst series of fires in California, officials said, since Nov. 6, 1961 when 484 houses in the exclusive Bel Air and Brentwood sections of Los Angeles were destroyed.

The three fires Friday marked out a 40-mile-long crescent of devastation which ranged from half a mile to five miles wide.

The cause of the blazes was unknown, fire officials said.

Fire fighters battled through the night, aided by a drop in the temperature which reached near 100 degrees Friday afternoon and a lessening of the winds, which gusted to 82 miles an hour Friday.

Thousands of residents who fled the flames in the two areas and in scores of other fire-ravaged regions throughout Southern California spent the night in evacuation centers set up by the Red Cross and other groups.

Thousands of others whose homes were spared by the flames were without electricity and telephone service. Other major fires started in Ventura, about 50 miles up the coast from Los Angeles; in Redlands, about 70 miles east of here, and near San Diego along the U.S.-Mexico border where a health ranch was threatened briefly.

Estimated acreage figures and numbers of homes destroyed early today were: Valley-Malibu, 63,000 and 140; Agua Dulce, 10,000; Ventura 1,200 and 15 homes damaged in the city limits: Border, 6,000 and Redlands, 5,000. The Redlands fire was contained.

The Malibu fire burned onto part of Reagan’s 54-acre ranch where he raises horses. Reagan spokesmen said he donned work clothes and went to the ranch for nearly two hours in the afternoon while firemen kept the brush fire about a mile from the ranch-house.

He returned to his coastal Pacific Palisades home near Los Angeles and declared a state of emergency throughout Los Angeles County.

The valley fire swept through the Spahn movie ranch, onetime residence of Charles Manson who is on trial with three of his hippie-style clan members in the slayings of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

Firemen said the flames damaged several of the abandoned movie-set buildings, where some of Manson’s “family” members still live.

Firemen said flames destroyed several outdoor sets at the 20th Century-Fox movie ranch in Malibu Canyon. A ranch guard said the destruction included sets for “Tora! Tora! Tora!” a $21 million epic which premiered this week. Scores of other blazes in all of Southern California’s six counties left thousands more brush and acres blackened, but no major structural damage.

The fires were fanned by the dreaded Santa Ana “devil winds,” which sweep through mountain passes from the Mojave Desert each fall. Flames licking through winding valleys also caused several “fire storms” in which superheated air blasts in a tornado-like swirls, charring vast areas of brush in minutes.

Terrified horses dashed from the fast-moving walls of flame along with deer and small animals routed from the hillsides.

Most of the house fires were touched off by wind-blown embers and many homes — especially those with tile roofs were spared.

Colony North, a subdivision dotted with palm trees and homes in the $75,000 and up range, was among the hardest hit areas in the valley.

By JAMES E. WALTERS