[NYTr] Calif Fires: 300,000 Forced from Homes

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The New York Times - Oct 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/us/23cnd-fire.html

California Fires Force 300,000 From Homes

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23 — More than a dozen wildfires continued to rage
unstopped in southern California for a third day today , forcing an
estimated 300,000 people to evacuate their homes and blackening over
400 square miles of brushland and suburbs.

Hot, gusting winds made the advancing flames nearly impossible for
firefighters to control, officials said. The winds are expected to keep
blowing through the day, and perhaps longer.

The worst conditions continued to be in San Diego County, where large
sections were under mandatory evacuation orders. County officials said
today that “about 1,000” structures had been destroyed since the fires
started Sunday night.

Officials appealed to residents outside the evacuated areas to remain
at home if possible and to limit their use of cellular phones, to keep
highways and communication lines clear for emergency use.

“Please stay at home today,” said Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San
Diego, in a televised news conference. The mayor also appealed for
donations of food, clothing and other supplies for evacuees taking
refuge at Qualcomm Stadium, whose numbers were expected to increase as
evacuations continue.

Ron Roberts, the chairman of the San Diego Board of Supervisors, said
yesterday, “We have a very dangerous. unpredictable situation that is
going on. We have, as we’ve noted, we have some of the highest
temperatures, some of the driest landscape conditions, some of the most
powerful winds; all of the ingredients for a perfect firestorm.”

Speaking this morning, he said that the forecast for shifting winds
later in the day “complicates life,” and that there was “nothing in
sight” that would promise relief from the hot, dry, windy weather.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Monday that 800 National Guard
troops would be diverted from duty on the southern border to assist
with evacuation and ground control in the county. County officials said
today that a total of 1,200 to 1,300 National Guard personnel were now
on duty.The fires, a Hydra with at least 15 separate burns in seven
counties fed by gale-force winds, burned some 267,000 acres from Santa
Barbara to the Mexican border. Engines and firefighters from as far as
Nevada and Arizona were summoned as resources were stretched to the
limit.

Houses burned with no firefighters in sight as emergency crews on the
ground and in the air struggled to keep up with shifting winds that
fanned new fires and made others recede and reignite.

Officials marveled that there had been just one death, in a fire in
southeastern San Diego County on Sunday that also injured several
people, including four firefighters. But thousands of residents
remained just one step ahead of the flames.

His face smudged with ash, Bruce Gallagher fled in a motor home as
flames approached his house in Ramona, San Diego County. He roamed the
parking lot of a mall in Escondido, carrying two large plastic bottles
in search of water.

“I have a feeling it’s probably gone,” Mr. Gallagher said of his home.

There, seven fires intensified and forced the largest evacuation ever
in San Diego County, including entire towns like Ramona and Rancho
Santa Fe in the rustic northern stretches. A total of 250,000 people
were urged to evacuate.

State emergency officials said they feared that the fires, devouring
some of the thickest and driest brush in years, could surpass the
destruction of 2003, when California experienced its worst fire season
on record.

Gov. Schwarzenegger, who had declared a state of emergency in seven
counties on Sunday, said President Bush had called to offer federal
assistance with the blazes, which could take several days to extinguish.

In San Diego, some worry the flames will advance from inland mountains
to the Pacific Ocean.

Thousands of uprooted people in San Diego County descended on Qualcomm
Stadium near downtown and the Del Mar Fairgrounds north of the city,
both of which opened as emergency shelters. National Guard troops were
sent to each location to help, and officials said they expected more
evacuees today. Other people jammed freeways or made desperate bids to
save their homes with garden hoses.

San Diego is particularly haunted by wildfires. The worst one in state
history burned nearly 750,000 acres in 2003, destroyed 3,600 homes and
other buildings, and killed 24 people across Southern California, with
much of the damage and more than a dozen of the deaths in San Diego
County.

Officials there said those memories prompted swift action this time as
the latest fire burned in much of the same area and same direction as
2003.

The San Diego Wild Animal Park, a major tourist draw, was closed and
the animals were moved to safer quarters while owners of horses
throughout northern San Diego also rushed to save their animals.

Because of the fires’ erratic nature, state officials had difficulty
compiling accurate data on the scope of the damage or progress in
controlling them. Just as state officials at a midmorning news
conference in Malibu were declaring a fire in suburban Los Angeles the
state’s top priority, San Diego officials were issuing sweeping
evacuation orders and television showed images of scores of buildings
burning in a remote area of Los Angeles.

The hot, gusting winds, not expected to let up until late Tuesday, at
times grounded fire-fighting airplanes, which are pivotal for their
ability to dump tremendous amounts of water and fire retardant.

“We have to just pray the wind slows down because the wind is the No. 1
enemy in the dry weather,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in Malibu, where a
large fire destroyed landmarks Sunday and flared anew after dying down
somewhat overnight.

Some of the fires appeared to have been started by downed power lines,
but a few were thought to have been caused by arson.

Brush and small trees burned in most cases, but firefighters faced a
difficult problem northeast of Los Angeles at the Lake Arrowhead
resort, where a forest fire erupted early in the afternoon and added to
the plume of smoke hanging over most of the region. Towers of flame
tore through houses and other structures there, and water-dropping
aircraft did not arrive for a few hours as they fought a larger fire 70
miles away in heavily populated Santa Clarita Valley, a typical dilemma
firefighters faced.

Scenes of residents taking matters into their own hands played out as
some fires burned for long periods without a firefighter in sight.

Dozens of men, women and children in Canyon Country, north of Los
Angeles, grabbed shovels and garden hoses and fought flames creeping up
a canyon within 50 feet of their homes.

About seven children and young teenagers worked in tandem with their
parents as the flames approached their back fences.

“That was hot!” said Steven Driedger, 14, as he examined his scratched
legs for signs of a burn. “But I’m fine.”

Steven’s mother, Carolyn Driedger, said the family, along with their
neighbors, had been battling the blaze since 4 a.m.

“Our neighborhood has really come together,” Ms. Driedger said, as a
firefighting crew finally pulled up in the late morning. “We had to.
These are the first official firefighters we’ve seen.”

In some of the day’s only good news, firefighters made significant
progress in surrounding a fire in Orange County without a single home
lost.

[Reporting was contributed by Will Carless from Escondido, Ana Facio
Contreras from Irvine, Larry Dorman from Poway, Regan Morris from
Canyon Country and John Holusha from New York. ]