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It's been a bad year I have not been allowed to go up to my home since Thursday when fires broke out in Santa Barbara.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081116/...ire_california
LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Fires whipped up by hot hurricane-force winds darkened Los Angeles skies on Saturday, charring thousands of acres and hundreds of homes in the second-largest U.S. city and threatening its power supply.
More than 10,000 people were ordered to evacuate as a fire that exploded overnight in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest, north of Los Angeles, barreled into the San Fernando Valley and burned more than 6,500 acres.
A separate fire flared southeast of Los Angeles in Orange and Riverside counties on Saturday morning, charring more than 1,200 acres and destroying at least 10 structures in the communities of Yorba Linda, Brea and Corona.
And the dry Santa Ana winds sweeping in from the desert fanned the fire in the foothills near Sylmar northwest of Los Angeles that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said had destroyed more homes than any other fire in the past decade.
"We're at the mercy of the wind. Mother Nature's not been too good to us for the last 15 hours," he said.
The Sylmar fire raged on both sides of Interstate 5, the main freeway connecting Los Angeles with the north.
Two of the five main transmission lines that supply power to the city had to be taken down because of damage to a converting station, and a third power line was damaged by heat.
Firefighters also continued to battle the two-day-old blaze in the celebrity enclave of Montecito, further up the coast near Santa Barbara, where 111 homes have been destroyed. The fire was about 40 percent contained, a spokesman said.
"When you walk around the areas that were devastated, it looked like today," California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told a news conference.
Police closed down Interstate 5 and other roads as 1,100 firefighters mobilized to fight the Sylmar fire. Only about 10 percent of the fire had been contained, Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Ron Haralson said Saturday afternoon.
Mountains were engulfed in flames and dense clouds of grayish-brown smoke. Soot hung in the air, which was heavy with the smell of burning wood. Steady gale-force winds, blowing at 35 mph, periodically gusted up to 75 mph and helped spread the fire.
A map of the fire is at http://tinyurl.com/sayrefire.
MOBILE HOMES DESTROYED
The greatest damage was reported in the Oakridge Mobile Home Park, where the fire burned about 500 houses to the ground. About 300 people, many of them Oakridge residents who fled their homes during the night, gathered in the Sylmar High School, where the American Red Cross set up relief services.
"You could see absolutely nothing," said Jackie Burns, 77, who, along with her husband, Len, fled their home at 3 a.m. as the fire raged through the neighborhood. "It was like looking into a black hole. It looked like the end of the world to me."
Some evacuees sobbed as a firefighter brought in a singed and tattered flag rescued from atop one of the houses.
"It was an absolute firestorm," said Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Steve Ruda. "Firefighters were braving 50-foot flame lengths as they swept across the mobile homes." Heat from the flames melted firefighters' hoses to the pavement, he said.
An additional 24 homes and 10 commercial structures have been damaged or destroyed, Haralson said. At least 5,000 more structures have been threatened, Schwarzenegger said.
California's fire season, which traditionally starts in June, has been lengthening and getting worse as the dry state adds homes in fringe areas prone to flames.
"California has fires year round," said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, at the conference. "There really is no fire season in California any longer."
Los Angeles County, home to nearly 10 million people, has been largely spared damage this year. In October of last year 30 blazes raged across Southern California, forcing evacuation of more than 500,000 people and damaging some 2,000 homes.
Marie Larsen, 70, another evacuee who took refuge at the Sylmar school, said she grabbed her suitcase -- still packed from a month ago when she fled her home during the Sesnon fire -- and left after police officers banged on her door.
The Los Angeles area remains on alert for more fires, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. "It's the dry conditions that make it perfect for more fires," he said.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman and Fred Prouser in Los Angeles, Anupreeta Das and Peter Henderson in San Francisco; editing by Jackie Frank and Todd Eastham)
It's been a bad year I have not been allowed to go up to my home since Thursday when fires broke out in Santa Barbara.
There was ash faloing on the street like it was sprinkling. I live nowhere near the fires
protest G-d and G-d will protest you.
im stuck here..i live in Corona and its pretty bad.
It was like that last year here with the Santiago fire. It came within a mile of where I live. It was scary stuff, we were packed and ready to evacuate.
Hope everyone there stays safe.
looks like feds will have to payout since insurance companies will ask for a bailout....
When does the earthquake happen
Same different year for LA.
It's no joke. When it gets this hot and the Santa Ana winds kick up we call it "Shake and Bake" because earthquakes have been known to hit in these conditions.
You live in LA?
Orange County. About an hour South of LA.You live in LA?
Pretty much LA.
Are you ok? how are the winds?
I'm okay, thanks. The fires are kind of all around us but nothing is too close. Last year was much more frightening. The winds seem calmer tonight, they were pretty fierce the last 2 days.
Anyone in SoCal finding it hard to breathe
Glad to hear I hope to be able to return to our home sunday as we have 40% containment of the fire here in SB.
Stay safe. I hope it's over soon.Glad to hear I hope to be able to return to our home sunday as we have 40% containment of the fire here in SB.
from what I hear, this is worst than last year. Last year was more Brush fire type. This year...100 houses have already burned down from the OC fires alone.
I heard over 500 hoises total. I remember lastyear in Riverside, my cousins dogs were full of ash. That was crazy.
You're right, there's more property damage now. People were evacuated last year but I don't remember that there were as many houses lost.
Last year was more frightening for me because it came within a mile of my house.
if i recall, the santiago burned down about 15 houses.
I wonder if the Sylmar Converter Station is at risk of being destroyed? That would put the region in distress for some time. I believe is supplies the LA area with about half the electricity they use.
Supply and demand? I wonder how much LA can get from alternate routes and at what cost. Afterall, the Pacific DC Intertie saves the area about $600,000 per day by using our cheap electricity. Some of it can be shipped by other routes, but far less efficiently. It would probale increase the demand in my area making us more money from Clalifornia residents!
Exactly. This reminds me of a scene from The Fifth Element:
priest: Leelu's in trouble?
Corbin: When is LeeLu not in trouble?
When is LA not ringed by wildfires?
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