Houses reduced to rubble
2008-11-18 08:06
Los Angeles - Stunned, bedraggled
evacuees began returning home on Monday to three areas of
southern California ravaged by wildfires, some finding their
homes and cars reduced to piles of smouldering, melted rubble.
The fires blazed on, though diminished winds and cooler
temperatures helped keep them in check, and thick smoke hung
over much of the area, stinging the eyes and making breathing
difficult.
Weary firefighters still fought to contain fires in the
foothills north of Los Angeles, in Orange County to the
southeast and at the celebrity-studded enclave of Montecito
near Santa Barbara.
Three fires have over the past five days destroyed around
1 000 homes and blackened 142 sq km across
southern California. Authorities said it would take several
days to put out all of the fires but needed co-operation from
unpredictable winds.
With most neighbourhoods seemingly out of danger and the
fires driven into unpopulated areas, many of the estimated
50 000 evacuees were being allowed to return home.
In Sylmar, residents of a mobile home park where some 500
homes were lost were given a tour of the devastation to see
what, if anything, they had left. Search teams with cadaver
dogs scoured the ruins looking for human remains.
No one was believed to have died in the complex. But
because the area was evacuated in a hurry, and only about a
quarter of the roughly 1 700 residents were officially
accounted for, authorities were taking no chances.
Those residents whose dwellings burned to the ground were
shuttled to the site in buses, where they viewed the scorched
ruins from inside the vehicles.
Elderly residents left with nothing
Smaller groups of residents from about 100 homes left
standing were given 10 minutes each to retrieve a bag or two of
personal belongings. Most carried out a change of clothes,
medications and other necessities while others retrieved more
symbolic items.
Retiree Deborah Midelton, 60, grabbed her grandmother's
antique brass candlesticks, saying they had survived two world
wars and earthquakes.
"I think this is the closest I've been to a war zone,"
Midelton said. "The front of the house is OK. From the kitchen
on back, it's just gone."
Marie Larsen, 70, said she needed to see for herself the
destruction she had only imagined.
"I've just got to know that it's really not there. It's
really hard to accept that it's not," she said. "I came into
this world with nothing. I guess I'll go out with nothing,
too."
Larsen had escaped with her two cats moments before her
home of 16 years was consumed by flames. Her 82-year-old friend
and roommate, who is bedridden, was carried out by rescuers as
flames licked at their windows.
Jacqueline Burns, 77, said she and her husband, Len, 79,
went back to find their home singed, with some broken windows,
a missing door and other minor damage. But Burns was shocked by
the devastation and stunned to find some gutted homes next door
to others left untouched.
"I was crying all the way up," she said of her brief visit.
"On our block, there were flowers on the bushes. Then you turn
the corner, and the whole street is gone."
Residents in Yorba Linda, south of Los Angeles, also spent
the day picking through the charred wreckage of their homes. In
one neighbourhood, perched on a ridge overlooking wooded
canyons, eight homes were destroyed.
"It was really hard when we first got here, it was
shocking," 23-year-old Brittney Fowler said of returning with
her family to the home she had lived in her entire life.
Fowler recalled racing through the home two days earlier,
grabbing a few pictures and other mementos as the flames
marched down a hillside toward her. She remembered thinking:
"I'll miss you, house."
- Reuters