California firefighters warn of "apocalyptic" threat
30.10.2003 - 00:00
By Gina Keating
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California fire officials have warned that one of the biggest of the wildfires they are fighting could be on the verge of taking an "apocalyptic" turn if it spreads to "a deadline" of diseased and highly flammable trees in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The California Department of Forestry has "maxed out" its resources to keep the rampaging blazes from reaching beetle-killed trees surrounding mountain towns in San Bernardino County, the agency's director Andrea Tuttle told reporters on Wednesday.
There are 400,000 acres (161,900 hectares) of dead and diseased trees in San Bernardino and San Diego Counties, Tuttle said.
"When the fire gets into diseased trees the fire will be of biblical proportions," Tuttle said. Since the trees are dead, they provide perfect fuel for the fires and would produce an intensity of heat and flame not so far seen in the week old battle.
"We are worried. We are trying to hold the fire out of that area, but if it does go up it will be of epic proportions. We will not have seen a conflagration of those proportions once it gets started," she said.
Meanwhile, a Los Angeles County blaze that firefighters had managed to tamp down overnight sprang up ahead of strengthening ocean gusts on Wednesday afternoon, leapt Interstate 5 and made a run for a neighbourhood of expensive homes.
Fifty-foot (16 metre) high flames came within feet of homes in the Stevenson Ranch in Los Angeles, and police warned residents and news crews to be prepared to evacuate quickly. Firefighting aircraft dove through thick smoke to aggressively bombard the so-called Simi Valley fire with water and retardant as strong winds buffeted the aircraft.
NINE MAJOR FIRES
Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Mark Savage said about 50 fire engines were positioned throughout Stevenson Ranch to protect the structures. "We are putting in place the plan we have had the whole time: defending the structures as (the fire) bumps into the foothill area," Savage said.
The fires have blackened an area nearly the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island -- over the course of a week and incinerated 2,000 homes, destroying entire suburban neighbourhoods in hours.
Officials said that at least 18 people have died in one of the state's worst-ever wildfire seasons and grimly predicted that more charred bodies would be uncovered when the flames were finally doused and rescue workers moved in.
More than 12,000 firefighters from across California and the western states have been deployed at nine major fires and eight smaller offshoots that have burned more than 600,000 acres (242,800 hectares) from north of Los Angeles to the U.S.-Mexico border, Tuttle said.
She added that the biggest worry remained the so-called Old Fire, which on Wednesday jumped a highway that firefighters hoped would act as a brake and marched through the San Bernardino Mountains to surround some 16 mountain communities about 70 miles (113 km) east of Los Angeles.
MOUNTAIN TOWN WIPED OUT
More than 50,000 residents of the popular resort towns of Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead jammed the only two roads off the mountain on Tuesday afternoon, fleeing a towering firestorm that caught crews off guard.
In San Diego County, the so-called Cedar fire incinerated 90 percent of the buildings in the mountain hamlet of Cuyamaca, and firefighters were staging a house-by-house effort to save nearby Julian, a former gold-mining town, and seven other communities from the fire's advance.
Tuttle reported that early and incomplete surveys of the burned area showed that 300 structures had been lost in Cuyamaca, where only the town hall and fire station were standing, and at least 200 in Julian.
The two huge fires in San Diego County had destroyed 1,300 homes and killed 12 people. Although diminished desert winds and clearing skies overnight allowed firefighters to make their first progress in containing the 45-mile-long fires, Wednesday afternoon brought renewed gusts from the opposite direction, officials said.
"It's a bad wind for us," CDF regional Chief Tim Turner said.
Gov. Gray Davis estimated that by the time all of the fires were put out the cost to California, which is already reeling from financial woes that prompted voters to throw him out of office, would be nearly $2 billion.