October 28, 2003
SAN DIEGO — California firefighters on Tuesday continued to battle devastating wildfires that have killed 17 people and destroyed more than 1,100 homes, the state's deadliest outbreak in more than a decade.
Photo: Tim Mills, left, and Beverly Gebur watch as a fire above the Wal-Mart parking lot flares up with the evening wind in Lakeside, Calif., Monday, Oct. 27, 2003. California's deadliest outbreak of fires in more than a decade has destroyed at least 1,100 homes, killed at least 13 people and consumed more than 400,000 acres stretching from the Mexican border to the suburbs northwest of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Fifteen California residents had been killed by as many as 10 separate blazes scattered around the southern part of the state, while two more people died in Mexico. About 30,000 homes were still in danger from the fires, which had consumed more than half a million acres of dense, dry brush and trees.
The mounting daily cost of fighting Southern California's wildfires is draining the state's already stressed coffers as California's contribution could swell to $100 million. By Tuesday, firefighting costs topped $24 million. Property damage is expected to run into the billions, officials said.
"This will be the most expensive fire in California history, both in loss of property and the cost of fighting it," Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, said Monday.
Weather forecasters said they expected cooler temperatures and more humid air to move into the area as early as Tuesday, which would help firefighters contain the fires.
The flames dotted an area that extended on a 100-mile line from the Mexican border north to the suburbs of Los Angeles.
A handful of other fires that hadn't hit any homes also consumed tens of thousands of acres of brush and forest lands, bringing the total burned to more than 500,000 acres — or about 780 square miles, roughly three-quarters the total area of Rhode Island.
"It's a worst-case scenario. You couldn't have written anything worse than this. You can dream up horror movies, and they wouldn't be this bad," said Gene Zimmerman, supervisor of the San Bernardino National Forest (search), the area in which two of the most destructive fires began last week.
A blaze in San Bernardino County called the Old Fire, which began near the forest on Saturday, has destroyed at least 450 homes and been blamed for the deaths of two people. It was 10 percent contained Tuesday. The adjacent Grand Prix Fire, which was 25 percent contained, has destroyed at least 77 homes since it ignited near the forest on Oct. 21.
The two fires merged earlier this week, jumped a freeway and were moving as one contiguous wall of flames toward the mountain resort town of Lake Arrowhead. The town, which sits at an elevation of 5,100 feet, was left particularly vulnerable to flames by a beetle infestation that has devastated the surrounding trees.
"It is one of our major concerns at the moment," U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Carol Beckley said late Monday.
Officials were particularly concerned about "crowning," in which flames leap from one treetop to another, leaving firefighters on the ground all but powerless to stop them.
"If that occurs we don't have the capability to put those fires out," Beckley said. "It will be a firestorm."
One of the biggest fire fights on Tuesday was unfolding in the Santa Susana Mountains that separate Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, where 1.3 million people live, from Simi Valley in neighboring Ventura County.
The Simi Valley fire, which has destroyed 13 homes since it began Saturday, was burning dangerously close to a gated community of million-dollar mansions in Los Angeles' Chatsworth section. It was only 5 percent contained.
Conditions were equally grim in San Diego County, where ash from three large fires fell on the beaches like snow and drivers had turn on their headlights during the day. So far in the county, 10,000 people have been evacuated and 50,000 are without electricity.
San Diego Fire Chief Jeff Bowman was worried that the fires would merge into one gigantic blaze, pushing already strained resources to the breaking point.
"It would be disingenuous to say we have control of these fires. Right now we are throwing everything we can at them," Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, said of the San Diego blazes.
The death toll is the most since the devastating Oakland Hills fire that killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes in October 1991.
Scores of people were also injured by this week's fires, including eight people treated for burns and smoke inhalation at the University of California, San Diego, Medical Center, on Monday. Two were in serious to critical condition with burns over more than 55 percent of their bodies, spokeswoman Eileen Callahan said.
More resources were on the way from Arizona and Nevada, which were answering pleas for help from Gov. Gray Davis.
Each state has volunteered the use of 50 fire trucks, most of which are being directed toward the San Diego fires, Davis said. Nevada was also sending three helicopters.
On Monday, President Bush granted Davis' request to declare the region a disaster area, opening the door to grants, loans and other aid to residents and businesses in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties.
"I believe at the local, state and federal levels they are doing their parts in this distress," Davis told The Associated Press.
The Democratic governor, who will leave office next month after being recalled, dismissed criticism from some Republican lawmakers that he could have asked for help sooner.
"It's not time for second guessing, but to pull their loads to get these fires out and checks in the hands of people who lost their homes," Davis said.
As the flames continued to rage out of control, every Californian seemed to know someone — or know someone who knew someone — who was affected by the fires.
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, said his home was among hundreds damaged or destroyed in his mountain town.
Maurice Greene, a sprinter who won a gold medal at the 2000 Olympics, had to evacuate his 9,000-square-foot home near Simi Valley on Monday.
"We have to put it in God's hands. That's all we can do," he said as he left.
Fox News' William La Jeunesse and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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