[BC] ca fires from NY Times (fair use)

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California Fires Out of Control as More Than 500,000 Flee

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Article Tools Sponsored By
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: October 24, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23 — Punishing winds and unstable thermal conditions — 
married with strained firefighting resources — stymied efforts Tuesday 
to contain a slew of wildfires burning for a third day across Southern 
California.
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Enlarge This Image
LaFonzo Carter/The Associated Press via The San Bernadino Sun

A San Bernardino City firefighter last night.
Multimedia
California Wildfires Keep Spreading
California Wildfires Keep Spreading
California WildfiresSlide Show
California Wildfires
Related
Automated Phone System Warns San Diego (October 24, 2007)
Shriver Shares Spotlight, Talking Politics and Wildfires (October 24, 2007)
With Katrina Fresh, Bush Moves Briskly (October 24, 2007)
Santa Ana Winds, Frequent and Troublesome (October 24, 2007)
Victims in Wildfire’s Path Say, ‘Why Me?’ (October 24, 2007)
The Lede: Latest Fire Updates
California Fire Information (fire.ca.gov)
Times Topics: Forest and Brush Fires
Audio
  Back Story With Randal C. Archibold and Solomon Moore (mp3)
Enlarge This Image
Rick Bowmer/Associated Press

A firefighter walked along a back fire on a hillside in Jamul, Calif.
Enlarge This Image
Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Britney Novak of Jamul, Calif., watched backfires burn across from an 
evacuation center at a high school in Spring Valley on Tuesday.
Enlarge This Image
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Two men walked by a smoldering hillside Tuesday in Running Springs, Calif.
Enlarge This Image
Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press

Lines of fire spread along the Santiago Canyon hills on Tuesday in 
Silverado, Calif.
Enlarge This Image
Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger walks past a burnt home in Lake Arrowhead, Calif.

While firefighters late Tuesday began to get the upper hand on some 
fires in Los Angeles county, officials in San Diego were left worried 
that the fires could march toward more populated areas along the Pacific 
Ocean.

“As long as the east wind continues to blow, that is the direction 
things are going,” said Roxanne Provaznik, spokeswoman for the 
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “There are a lot 
of homes on that coastal community, so there is so much potential injury.”

By Tuesday, more than 400 square miles in seven counties had been 
consumed by some 16 fires, flames fueled by high desert winds and hot 
temperatures that remained largely impervious to air attacks, garden 
hoses, fire retardant or prayers for relief.

The authorities said the blazes, raging from the Simi Valley northwest 
of Los Angeles to the Mexican border, were responsible for two deaths, 
and possibly five others. At least 25 firefighters and civilians were 
reported to have suffered burns.

By late Tuesday, the fires had consumed well over 1,000 homes and 
commercial structures, with the authorities reporting that 68,500 homes 
remained threatened. At least 500,000 people were estimated to have 
evacuated and thousands more had been ordered to move, making the 
evacuation effort roughly half the size of that from the New Orleans 
area after Hurricane Katrina. The authorities said firefighters were 
overwhelmed as new blazes sparked and existing ones thrashed in new 
directions, impeding efforts to focus energy and resources. By midday, a 
new fire began in San Diego County even as fires elsewhere became 
partially contained.

President Bush, responding to entreaties from Gov. Arnold 
Schwarzenegger, declared a state of emergency in California, paving the 
way for federal disaster aid to arrive, and said he would survey the 
state on Thursday.

While Mr. Schwarzenegger said during a news conference Tuesday that he 
was “happy” with the number of firefighters working the blazes, 
officials said that they were stretched thin and that a lack of 
resources was as much a burden as the temperatures and winds.

“Our resources are low,” Ms. Provaznik said in a telephone interview 
from San Diego. “Our firefighters are stretched out because of the 
number of fires around the state.”

Mr. Bush, mindful of the embarrassment his administration suffered after 
the Gulf Coast disaster two years ago, dispatched officials from the 
Department of Homeland Security to assess the damage. Federal and local 
fire teams from Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming joined the fight, and the 
governor called up 1,500 National Guard members.

The governor expanded his request to Mr. Bush on Tuesday afternoon, 
asking him to raise his declaration to “major disaster,” which would 
affect how the state is reimbursed later. The governor estimated that 
$75 million in federal aid would be needed.

Tuesday evening, Gov. Schwarzenegger said he had ordered state prisons 
to deploy their fire fighting muscle — including six fire engines and 18 
fire captains — to assist in fire fighting. The state’s corrections 
department also has more than 2,640 trained inmate firefighters actively 
battling the southern California wildfires today after being deployed by 
Mr. Schwarzenegger.

Swift emergency response efforts, most likely matched by memories of the 
devastating fires here in 2003, may have contributed to the relatively 
low death toll.

“These are big fires, tragic, and the impact of these things will last a 
long time,” said Jodi Traversaro, spokeswoman for the state’s Office of 
Emergency Services. “I think Katrina taught us a whole lot.”

Two fires in Los Angeles County were largely contained Tuesday night. 
“This is a good news story," Lee Baca, the Los Angeles County sheriff, 
said at a news conference. But the rest of the state was less lucky.

San Diego County remained the worst of the burning regions, with at 
least 1,250 homes and 102 buildings destroyed and half a million people, 
according to local officials, displaced. The estimates of the number of 
people displaced, however, varied wildly between state and local 
officials. Thousands of evacuees headed for Qualcomm, the 60,000-seat 
home of the San Diego Chargers as others stuffed into area hotels.

A shift in the prevailing winds in the area on Tuesday, from the fierce 
but predictable Santa Ana winds, to more volatile western ones, also 
plagued firefighters.

But the director of San Diego County’s Office of Emergency Services, Ron 
Lane, said at a news conference Tuesday evening that he thought the 
corner had been turned and that more favorable weather forecast would 
allow firefighters to make real headway. “The worst is behind us,” Mr. 
Lane said.

For all the dislocation and destruction, the five deaths in San Diego 
County that local officials attributed directly or indirectly to the 
fires as of Tuesday afternoon also underscored how difficult it is to 
classify and describe the real dimensions of a disaster that has, at 
least so far, mainly been measured in property loss, charred landscape 
and disrupted life.

Three of the people who died were in their 90s, including two who died 
in nursing homes in what county officials said were “natural causes.” 
The oldest fatality, June E. Brewer, was 95. She died in her hotel room, 
the county said in news release, after being evacuated.

Thomas James Varshock, 52, died on his property on Sunday, the county 
said, during the Harris Fire the only death directly linked to fire. 
Another victim, Suzanne Elizabeth Casey, 62, died in a fall in a 
restaurant, the county said, but had previously been evacuated from her 
home.

In many areas, firefighters were no match for speeding flames and sought 
refuge in aluminum fire shelters or retreated in the face of burning 
hillsides. Strong winds made attacks from the air difficult.

“We tried to get back in there at about 5 a.m. but we couldn’t get 
through,” John Miller, a United States Forest Service spokesman, said, 
referring to two fires in the town of Lake Arrowhead, in the San 
Bernardino National Forest, where at least 100 homes and 5,000 acres 
have been destroyed. “It was a wall of fire.”

California residents who were forced to leave home struggled to sift 
through the rumors. David Yurkovic, 43, was in a shelter in San 
Bernardino with his five children and his pregnant wife, Roberta. “She’s 
due in two months; she doesn’t feel so good,” he said. “I don’t know if 
my house is O.K. I have no idea. The worst part here is the rumors.”

The speed and ferocity of the fires were fueled by a lethal combination 
of heat, drought and the often hurricanelike Santa Ana winds that travel 
from the Mojave Desert into the coastal mountains, which become hotter 
as they hit parched valleys.

Throughout Southern California, the sky was illuminated with a pink, 
hazy glow, and smoke rose like a marine layer of fog. Angry red embers 
jumped from yards to roads. Ash fell onto parked cars miles from fires.

The typically bustling Lake Arrowhead resembled a ghost town, with 
abandoned shops and homes. A choking haze of smoke and ash covered the 
mountain, creating dusk at noon. At 6,000 feet, the smoke blacked out 
the sun above and the valley below.

The closer to the center of the blazes, the louder the roaring crackle 
of fire. The air filled with smoke, gas and fine particles, making it 
extremely difficult to breathe comfortably in some areas. Air-quality 
experts implored residents to curtail outdoor activities.

Not everyone obeyed orders to leave. Greg Curfman, 42, and his daughter 
Brittney, 18, were among a group of Silverado Canyon residents who 
refused to leave their homes. By 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Mr. Curfman was 
exhausted from helping transfer the animals on his ranch to safe places 
around Orange County. “I’m staying here unless it’s a last-ditch 
effort,” said Mr. Curfman, who has lived in the canyon for 15 years.

In Castaic, Calif., a suburban enclave in northern Los Angeles County, a 
fast-moving fire surprised local residents who had thought the troubles 
were confined to areas to their south.

Roughly 60 Mexican firefighters from the border cities of Tijuana and 
Tecate crossed into the United States on Sunday to help fight the fires, 
but they scrambled home Monday when fires broke out south of the border.

A survey conducted by the California Farm Bureau Federation found that 
avocado and citrus groves, nurseries, vineyards, rangeland, and other 
farm and ranch operations were possibly damaged, with thousands of 
horses evacuated to shelters and livestock also possibly caught in the 
fires’ paths.

Reporting was contributed by Ana Facio Contreras from Silverado Canyon, 
Kirk Johnson from San Diego, Marc Lacey from Mexico, Jesse McKinley from 
Santa Clarita and Regan Morris from Lake Arrowhead.
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Past Coverage

     * 250,000 Urged to Flee in California as Fires Spread (October 23, 
2007)
     * Fires in California Kill One and Destroy Buildings (October 22, 2007)
     * AMERICAN ALBUM; In the Clouds, Sitting Watch Over Paradise 
(October 3, 2007)
     * Emergency Declared in Idaho As Wildfires Spread in West (August 
21, 2007)


	
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