Firefighters battle wind-fed California blaze

Friday, May 8, 2009 at 2:13 AM Posted by Beijing News


Firefighters battled Friday to get a grip on a wind-driven wildfire raging in California that has destroyed more than 70 houses and forced thousands to flee.

The inferno in the hills around the upmarket coastal town of Santa Barbara, northwest of Los Angeles, began raging earlier this week as powerful hot gusts and record temperatures created a perfect storm of fire conditions.

The National Weather Service forecast no let-up with temperatures Friday soaring to 94 degrees Fahrenheit 34 degrees Celsius and an extended alert for powerful gusts until the weekend.

Officials said some 12,000 residents of the picturesque city were under mandatory evacuation orders, and a further 12,000 people were advised to be ready to evacuate, as an army of 2,300 firefighters backed by 10 air tankers and 15 helicopters tackled the flames.

Local media said early Friday that an additional 6,000 residents previously under evacuation warnings had been told to leave the area immediately.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told the local KSBY TV station that the blaze was the county's worst emergency in a quarter century.

As of 7:00 pm 0200 GMT Thursday, the fire was only 10 percent contained and had burned through some 2,739 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection CALFIRE.

Notorious local gusts known as "sundowners" arrived after sunset Thursday, hampering the work of weary fire crew that had earlier welcomed a brief respite from the conditions.

Santa Barbara County Fire Chief Tom Franklin stressed that the area was "not out of the woods."

Authorities said the fire destroyed 75 homes and that 3,500 more properties and 100 shops were threatened by the blaze.

Franklin said the destruction could have been worse.

"By all rights there maybe should have been hundreds of homes lost, due to the fuel in that canyon and the 70 mile per hour winds," Franklin said. "There was some real effort made on that fire front and some real saves made."

So far 11 firefighters had been injured in the fire. Three were hospitalized with burns and smoke inhalation after a home they were protecting was suddenly engulfed by flames. The firefighters were in a stable condition Thursday.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency to help release resources to fight the blaze.

Schwarzenegger, who toured the area early Thursday, told reporters at a morning briefing that firefighters were hampered by terrain and the weather.

"This fire has been a great challenge, there's no two ways about it," Schwarzenegger said. "The 50 mph winds, the lack of access to the terrain and the dense brush -- all this creates great challenges."

After battling through the night on Wednesday, firefighters got a clearer picture of the devastation caused by the fire as dawn broke, with several multi-million dollar mansions in the foothills reduced to blackened shells as vast plumes of thick smoke shrouded the region.

Last November at least 100 homes were destroyed by a wildfire in the celebrity enclave of Montecito near Santa Barbara.



Marai

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