California Wildfire Still Spreading

By Raymond Fitzmyer, From: http://www.enews20.com/news_California_Wildfire_Still_Spreading_14267.html
11:59, November 17th 2008

 

 

 

The fire from California has reached its fourth day of spreading all around the area and destroying more than 800 homes. Firefighters are desperately trying to stop it while evacuating thousands of residents. Since Thursday, when the blaze began, 800 houses, most of them million-dollar mansions, were erased in the county of Montecito.

Nearly 50,000 residents were asked to leave their homes while 35,600 acres were filed only with wildfire. The blast spread from Santa Barbara County to the southeast of Los Angeles and the firefighters all around the region couldn’t stop it. Almost 11 injuries have been reported in the entire region beginning from Friday when the fire hit Los Angeles.

Ground zero of Los Angeles was covered only with ash on Sunday, when rescue teams, firefighters and rescue dogs were sent to check the area. There, nearly 500 homes were turned into ashes as the fire went ahead destroying more of them. Michael Moore, Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief, said that 30% of the area was checked by rescue teams and no human remains were found.

Still, firefighters from Los Angeles area stated that they had made very important progress as they managed to stop the fire on a 10,000-acre area on Saturday. After that, the fire was only 40% contained. But the cause of the terrific blaze still remains unknown. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Governor, has declared a state of emergency in the areas affected by the blaze.

He said that it’s the usual thing this time of the year when “we have the perfect storm, which means basically we have high winds, high temperatures and very very dry." Antonio Villaraigosa, Mayor of Los Angeles, said that he hadn’t seen so many burnt and destroyed houses, while nearly 37,000 firefighters and rescue crews were battling the blast.