More Californians flee fires

2008-11-17 07:35

Diamond Bar, California - More residents of Southern California were urged to leave their homes on Sunday despite calming winds that allowed a major aerial attack on wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and blanketed the region in smoke.

Fires raged in and around Los Angeles County, destroying more than 800 houses, mobile homes and apartments. Fires have burned areas more than 88 square kilometres since breaking out on Thursday.

No deaths have been reported, but police brought in trained dogs on Sunday morning to search the rubble of a mobile home park where nearly 500 homes were destroyed. They didn't find any bodies after searching about a third of the homes.

"This has been a very tough few days for the people of Southern California," Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said after touring damaged areas.

The smell of smoke pervaded metropolitan Los Angeles. Downtown skyscrapers were silhouettes in an opaque sky, and concerns about air quality forced organisers to cancel a marathon in suburban Pasadena where 8 000 runners had planned to participate.

Fierce Santa Ana winds that fanned the fires on Saturday weakened on Sunday morning, allowing firefighters to set backfires to prevent flames from advancing to hillside neighbourhoods. Air tankers swooped low over suburbs, red fire retardant billowing from their bellies as they painted defensive lines between brushlands and homes. Big helicopters shuttled back and forth on water drops.

The most threatening blaze had scorched more than 41 square kilometres in Orange and Riverside counties after erupting on Saturday and shooting through subdivisions entwined with wilderness parklands. By midday on Sunday, multimillion-dollar homes were being threatened in Diamond Bar in Los Angeles County as the out-of-control fire pushed northward.

Fire officials on Sunday morning ordered 1 400 more residents to evacuate, in addition to 26 500 who had already been told to leave.

'It was like the church was protecting itself'

In the early morning, winds pushed flames dangerously close to a church and adjacent mobile home park in the Olinda Village area north of Yorba Linda, but firefighters were able to beat it back. Only one mobile home was lost.

Billy Bagsby, an inmate firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the flames suddenly shifted direction around 02:00 local time.

"It was like the church was protecting itself," Bagsby said.

On Saturday, the fire burned 119 homes in the communities of Corona, Yorba Linda and Anaheim. In addition, 50 units of an apartment complex burned, Orange County fire spokesperson Angela Garbiso said.

Captain Guy Melker of the Los Angeles County Fire Department stood on a balcony of a multimillion-dollar home in Diamond Bar, looking down into a canyon with flames on the far side. The street was under mandatory evacuation. Most driveways were empty, although luxury SUVs were still parked in some, their back seats packed with belongings.

"It's an interesting chess game right now," Melker said. "Sometimes Mother Nature puts us in check, and our job is to put her in checkmate."

As Melker spoke, a small spotter plane slipped low across a ridge, followed by a big air tanker that dropped its load along a ridge.

Six firefighters from various agencies were injured in the blaze, including four Corona firefighters hurt when flames swept over their engine, Garbiso said. Two of the Corona crew members required hospital treatment but were released.

No fatalities reported

In the Orange County city of Brea, fire destroyed the main building of a high school.

About 80km to the northwest, a fire that burned more than 36 square kilometres in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley was 30% contained after devastating a luxury mobile home park early on Saturday. The fire was largely burning in a rugged wilderness canyon.

Authorities said on Sunday that 484 of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park's 608 units were lost. The Sylmar fire also destroyed nine single-family homes and 11 commercial buildings.

The park was home to many elderly residents, and though no fatalities were reported and no one was reported missing, investigators were searching the site using trained dogs. The search was about 30% complete by midday on Sunday.

"To this point no human remains have been found," said Deputy Police Chief Michael Moore.

Fire officials estimated that at the peak of the Sylmar fire, 10 000 people were ordered to evacuate. However, many evacuation orders were lifted on Saturday night, Fire Department spokesperson Ron Haralson said. Five looting arrests were reported.

About 144km northwest of Sylmar, a eight-square kilometre fire that began in the upscale Santa Barbara County community of Montecito on Thursday night was 75% contained by Sunday morning after injuring at least 25 people.

County spokesperson William Boyer said 130 homes burned in the city of Santa Barbara and 80 burned in adjacent Montecito. Some of those destroyed were multimillion-dollar homes with ocean views. Many evacuees have been allowed to return home.

- AP