TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Wildfires Out Of Control In California Canyonlands

ADVERTISEMENT

The Associated Press

Published: July 6, 2008

LOS ANGELES - LOS ANGELES - A wildfire threatening thousands of homes in Southern California spread slowly through scenic canyonlands Saturday, straining resources as crews struggled to contain hundreds of other blazes around the state.

"The firefighters are stretched thin, they are exhausted," and some have gone days without sleep, said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who visited a command post in Santa Barbara County.

A slew of wildfires, most ignited by lightning two weeks ago, has burned more than 800 square miles of land throughout California. The blazes have destroyed at least 67 homes and other buildings and contributed to the death of a firefighter who suffered a heart attack while digging fire lines.

About 1,400 fires have been contained, but more than 330 still burned out of control Saturday.

Schwarzenegger said the state's top priority was in the coastal region of Santa Barbara County, where nearly 2,700 homes were threatened by a four-day-old fire in the Los Padres National Forest. The blaze has consumed about 13 square miles.

Cooler, moist air Saturday morning kept the fire sluggish and helped firefighters trying to surround it, said Pat Wheatley, county spokeswoman. The fire was 24 percent contained, she said.

Wheatley said about 4,000 homes were under a warning Saturday afternoon - a situation not as urgent as a mandatory evacuation - in four canyons at the northern end of the blaze.

"The advice is that you get prepared, that you get your belongings together and you stay very watchful," Wheatley said.

Temperatures were expected to reach the high 80s, and the smoke from the fire made for bad air quality.

Nearly 1,200 firefighters struggled to surround the blaze while a DC-10 air tanker and other aircraft dumped water and fire retardant along ridges and in steep canyons.

Investigators think that the fire, which began Tuesday, was human-caused. The U.S. Forest Service on Saturday asked for public's help in determining who had set it and whether it was sparked accidentally or on purpose.

Wheatley said the mandatory evacuation orders were partially lifted later Saturday, allowing some residents of Goleta to return. However, she did not know how many homes were affected.

Meanwhile, cooler weather helped crews attacking a two-week-old blaze that has destroyed 20 homes in Big Sur, at the northern end of the Los Padres forest.

The fire, which had blackened 107 square miles, was only 5 percent contained, but morning fog that moved in from the sea helped prevent it from advancing on Big Sur's famed restaurants and hotels.

"We're gaining ground, but we're nowhere near being done," said Gregg DeNitto, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service. "There's still a lot of potential out there. The fire has been less active the last couple of days. We've had favorable weather; they are taking every opportunity to get some line on it."

But the weather was expected to become hotter and drier over the next couple of days, with winds and temperatures rising and humidity dropping, he said.

Schwarzenegger noted that he recently ordered 400 National Guard troops to be trained in wildfire fighting so they could help fight the state's blazes.

MANMADE BLAZES
CROWN KING, Ariz. - Playing with matches, being careless with a campfire, even burning a letter from an estranged husband: Some of the most devastating wildfires in the country's recent history have been started by people.

In Arizona, the latest human-caused wildfire has burned more than 15 square miles, destroyed four homes in the community of Crown King, forced a weeklong evacuation of more than 100 people and cost upward of $2 million to fight.

"It's a little more depressing, or aggravating, when you know it's a human-caused start and it could have been prevented," said John Glenn, chief of fire operations for the federal Bureau of Land Management. "We're dealing with Mother Nature all the time and it's a given that we're going to have lightning starts, but that component that could be prevented. It's disturbing to a lot of people in the fire business."

People caused more than 73,000 wildfires that burned more than 5,300 square miles in 2007, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, based in Boise, Idaho. That compares with about 12,200 lightning-caused blazes that burned about 9,100 square miles.

The Associated Press

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT