Winds slow California fires

25/10/2007| IslamWeb

Fires raging across California have caused more than one billion dollars in property damage and left three people dead, officials say.

However, firefighters said on Wednesday that a break in the weather had given them a chance to go on the offensive.

Around 1,700 buildings have been destroyed in the 18 fires that have erupted since Sunday.

The fires have forced an estimated 500,000 people to flee their homes and scorched 172,000 hectares of countryside stretching from Malibu to beyond the Mexican border.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California governor, said a total of three  people had died and 40 people had been injured in the fires, the worst to hit California since devastating the fires of 2003 which claimed 22 lives.

Still burning

As night fell across the state, some 15 fires were still blazing largely out of control, mostly in San Diego County.

But a drop in temperatures and weaker Santa Ana winds had slowed their march towards threatened communities.

Al Jazeera's Kelly Rockwell, reporting from Rancho Bernardo in South California, said in some areas, the fires were raging out of control.

She quoted one official as saying all firefighters could do was to get out of the way of the fires in one district.

Thick smoke hung over much of the lower half of the state, raining ash over homes and cars.

"Today I can finally say it's a good afternoon," Bill Kolender, the San Diego County sheriff, said.

'Major disaster'

George Bush, the US president, has declared California's fires a "major disaster", triggering extra federal help.

He is scheduled to tour the fire areas on Thursday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had 1,000 people on the ground in San Diego, Sanders said.

FEMA and Bush were both criticized for being slow to respond when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region in 2005.

San Diego County, at the southern end of the state, has been hardest hit by the four days of intense fires, suffering losses in excess of $1bn, and three of the largest fires still burned out of control there.

After the largest evacuation in California's modern history, some residents were allowed to go home.

Desperate fights

One of the most desperate fights was in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, where the 20,000-acre Santiago fire threatened homes in a gated community.

Authorities said federal agents from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms joined local authorities in investigating the Santiago fire as an arson.

"Those are crime scenes," said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's department.

He said a $70,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible.

A shift in the wind, from hot dry Santa Ana gusts blowing in from the deserts to an onshore flow of cooler, more moist air coming from the Pacific, helped firefighters hold the line of the flames, which began moving away from populated areas.

Los Angeles County also reported progress, cancelling wind warnings for the first time since the weekend.

Top wind speeds fell to below 80kph after gale force gusts hit 130kph.

San Diego County officials said that even when the fires were extinguished they would face a major clean-up and huge costs.

PHOTO CAPTION

A firefighter sprays water in a torrent of hot ambers blown back at him and his team by the wind. [AFP]

 Al-Jazeera