California fires

12pleaseu,
Most of the people I know have been praying for rain like you have been getting. If we get a lot of rain at once I know that we are going to have mud slides all over the state. Thanks for the wish.

If we get a lot of rain there is nothing that can be done to prevent all the mud slides we will have. Calif is in a record defict budget this year and many of the services that are usually provided by the state are being cut. Car registration is expect to triple and every other state service is going to cost more. Increased tickest can be expected to off set the budget. I know they say that's not true but I know better: I'm a retired state worker.

Here's a new reports on the Fires

Even as winds calm, more Californians flee fires
AP – Daniel Brooks of the San Bernardino County Fire Department Grand Terrace unit fights a wildfire in Chino … DIAMOND BAR, Calif. – More residents of Southern California were urged to leave their homes Sunday despite calming winds that allowed a major aerial attack on wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and blanketed the region in smoke.

Fires burned in Los Angeles County, to the east in Riverside and Orange counties, and to the northwest in Santa Barbara County. More than 800 houses, mobile homes and apartments were destroyed by fires that have burned areas more than 34 square miles since breaking out Thursday.

No deaths have been reported, but police brought in trained dogs Sunday morning to search the rubble of a mobile home park where nearly 500 homes were destroyed. No bodies had been found by midday.

"This has been a very tough few days for the people of Southern California," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said after touring damage.

The smell of smoke pervaded metropolitan Los Angeles. Downtown skyscrapers were silhouettes in an opaque sky, and concerns about air quality forced organizers to cancel a marathon in suburban Pasadena where 8,000 runners had planned to participate.

Fierce Santa Ana winds that fanned the fires on Saturday weakened Sunday morning, allowing firefighters to set backfires to prevent flames from advancing to hillside neighborhoods. Air tankers swooped low over suburbs, red fire retardant billowing from their bellies as they painted defensive lines between brushlands and homes. Big helicopters shuttled back and forth on water drops.

The most threatening blaze had scorched more than 16 square miles in Orange and Riverside counties after erupting Saturday and shooting through subdivisions entwined with wilderness parklands. By midday Sunday, multimillion-dollar homes were being threatened in Diamond Bar in Los Angeles County as the out-of-control fire pushed northward.

Fire officials ordered 1,400 more residents to evacuate Sunday morning. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said 26,500 people remained under evacuation orders for that fire alone.

Retired aerospace engineer Joe Gomez, who has lived in his palm-tree-lined Diamond Bar neighborhood for 45 years, stayed put despite being under a mandatory evacuation.

"I'm trying to use some logic here," said Gomez, 72, trying to gauge the direction of the wind and flames. "I don't think it's going to come down this way."

Gomez packed a bag with important documents in case he decided to leave. His wife, a stroke victim, left with their daughters earlier in the day.

"My daughters were really thinking I was nuts. They said, `These are mandatory evacuations." I said, 'You guys just relax.'"

In the early morning, winds pushed flames dangerously close to a church and adjacent mobile home park in the Olinda Village area north of Yorba Linda, but firefighters were able to beat it back. Only one mobile home was lost.

Billy Bagsby, an inmate firefighter with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the flames suddenly shifted direction around 2 a.m.

"It was like the church was protecting itself," Bagsby said.

On Saturday, the fire burned 119 homes in the communities of Corona, Yorba Linda and Anaheim. In addition, 50 units of an apartment complex burned, Orange County fire spokeswoman Angela Garbiso said.

Capt. Guy Melker of the Los Angeles County Fire Department stood on a balcony of a multimillion-dollar home in Diamond Bar, looking down into a canyon with flames on the far side. The street was under mandatory evacuation. Most driveways were empty, although luxury SUVs were still parked in some, their back seats packed with belongings.

"It's an interesting chess game right now," Melker said. "Sometimes Mother Nature puts us in check, and our job is to put her in checkmate."

As Melker spoke, a small spotter plane slipped low across a ridge, followed by a big air tanker that dropped its load along a ridge.

Six firefighters from various agencies were injured in the blaze, including four Corona firefighters hurt when flames swept over their engine, Garbiso said. Two of the Corona crew members required hospital treatment but were released.

In the Orange County city of Brea, fire destroyed the main building of a high school.

About 50 miles to the northwest, a fire that burned more than 14 square miles in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley was 30 percent contained after devastating a luxury mobile home park early Saturday. The fire was largely burning in a rugged wilderness canyon.

Authorities said Sunday that 484 of the Oakridge Mobile Home Park's 608 units were lost. The Sylmar fire also destroyed nine single-family homes and 11 commercial buildings.

The park was home to many elderly residents, and though no fatalities were reported and no one was reported missing, investigators were searching the site using trained dogs. The search was about 30 percent complete by midday Sunday.

"To this point no human remains have been found," said Deputy Police Chief Michael Moore.

Fire officials estimated that at the peak of the Sylmar fire, 10,000 people were ordered to evacuate. However, many evacuation orders were lifted Saturday night, Fire Department spokesman Ron Haralson said. Five looting arrests were reported.

About 90 miles northwest of Sylmar, a 3-square-mile fire that began in the upscale Santa Barbara County community of Montecito on Thursday night was 75 percent contained by Sunday morning after injuring at least 25 people.

County spokesman William Boyer said 130 homes burned in the city of Santa Barbara and 80 burned in adjacent Montecito. Some of those destroyed were multimillion-dollar homes with ocean views. Many evacuees have been allowed to return home.

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I am very glad to hear that there has not been any loss of life through all the fires. The firefighters surely have a very dangerous and hard job to do. It sounds like they could use all the help they can get. Maybe the state could call in other state's firefighters to offer their help.

Well, it's only the begining of May and there is a fire burning down in Stanta Barbara, again. The area was hit hard last year and last night a fire that started yesterday morning was already endangering 2000 homes 1,200 of them had to be evacuated. The wind was gusting to 50mph and the fire fighters had no idea of when they would have the fire contianed or stopped. The Gov signed a new exuctive order so there would be money for the CDF and other agenices to fight fires this year.
It's been a drought for 3 yrs and the state is one big tinder box waiting to burn.

More about the newest fire in Santa Barbara

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON, Associated Press Writer Raquel Maria Dillon, Associated Press Writer – 20 mins ago
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Turning the horizon a lurid orange and raining embers on roofs as it advanced, a raging wildfire that has destroyed scores of homes in the hills menaced this celebrity enclave and other coastal towns Friday, and the number of people ordered to flee climbed to 30,000. Authorities warned an additional 23,000 to be ready to leave at a moment's notice.

Columns of smoke rose off the Santa Ynez Mountains as the 4-day-old blaze — fanned by "sundowner" winds that sweep down the slopes in the evening — blew up from 2,700 acres to 3,500 in less than a day, creating a firefighting front five miles long.

"It's crazy. The whole mountain looked like an inferno," said Maria Martinez, 50, who with her fiance hurriedly left her home in San Marcos Pass, on the edge of Santa Barbara. The couple went to an evacuation center at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

An unknown number of homes were destroyed in the blowup that began Thursday night, in addition to the estimated 75 houses that burned the night before on the ridges and in the canyons above Santa Barbara.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported.

The number of people ordered to evacuate rose to 30,500 from 12,000 the night before as the blaze pushed west toward neighboring Goleta and east toward well-to-do Montecito.

"Literally last night, all hell broke loose," Santa Barbara Fire Chief Andrew DiMizio said Friday morning, recounting firefighters' efforts to put out roof fires and keep flames out of his section of the city.

The eight-member Wasjutin family arrived at the university campus in three cars and a trailer packed with four dogs, eight baby chickens, two cockatiels, an iguana, a rat named Cutie and an African spur tortoise. They fled their 40-acre San Marcos Pass property after watching the flames grow closer. They left three horses and three hens behind.

"We drove down through fire on both sides," said Silvia Wasjutin, 48, a speech pathologist.

In a scene of strange contrasts, students bicycled to classes and midterms as ash fell on campus, and boats bobbed in Santa Barbara's harbor as smoke rose from the mountains above town.

The Santa Barbara area has long been a favorite of celebrities. Oprah Winfrey has an estate in Montecito, where Charlie Chaplin's old seaside escape, the Montecito Inn, has stood since 1928. A ranch in the mountains that Ronald and Nancy Reagan bought became his Western retreat during his presidency.

More than 2,300 firefighters battled the blaze, using at least 246 engines, 14 air tankers and 15 helicopters. A DC-10 jumbo jet tanker capable of dumping huge loads of retardant began making runs on the fire in the afternoon.

The cause of the blaze, which broke out Tuesday, remained under investigation.

Evacuation shelters were set up, and hotels offered deals to evacuees.

"Right now, if you're not evacuated in the Santa Barbara area, you are sheltering evacuees," DiMizio said.

Oscar Funez, 39, his wife, Patricia, 42, and their son, Augustin, 4, were watching the fire on television Thursday night when they noticed other tenants leaving their Santa Barbara apartment building. They packed a suitcase and fled, too.

"It's our fourth fire in Santa Barbara. We know we have to have everything — paperwork, clothes, everything — ready to go," Oscar Funez said.

The family spent the night on cots at the university, and their little boy was given a stuffed elephant toy by a Red Cross worker. "We must be bad parents, because we didn't bring his stuffed animals," his father joked.

At historic Santa Barbara Mission, established by the Spanish in 1786, the Rev. Tom Messner was one of three friars permitted to remain during the evacuation. He helped make sandwiches for the firefighters.

Messner said there was plenty of smoke, but "I can't see the flames, and we have firetrucks in front of the place, so we feel very safe." The church, a major tourist attraction, was built in 1820, after an earthquake destroyed the previous structure. Officials said 11 firefighters had been injured, including three burned in a firestorm Wednesday. They were reported in good condition at a Los Angeles burn center.

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Associated Press writer Jeff Wilson contributed to this report.

Hi Paul,
I read your post just now and I am so sorry to hear that there are so many problems with those wildfires in California. It's very good that noone was hurt in those wildfires thankfully. I also read something online about a day ago about brush fires in California again. That whole state could really use some good rain to help with the dryness there so that there are not so many fires. I hope that you are keeping safe where you are at.

I hate to say this but California has been burning all year long. We just put out one big fire and today there's another on. In a neighbor hood where I lived they're having trouble with an arson. Crazy fuckin world.