By DPA
Los Angeles : A hellish front of firestorms burned across southern California for the third straight day, prompting the largest evacuation in the state’s history as hundreds of thousands of residents fled for their lives.
Driven by stiff Santa Ana winds across the drought-stricken region covered by a string of wealthy cities, the series of furious wildfires are some of the worst in California’s history, destroying an estimated 1,250 homes, according to the Los Angeles Times.
President George W. Bush Tuesday declared a state of emergency and a total of 340,000 households had been ordered to evacuate — the largest evacuation ever in California.
It was unclear how many households heeded the orders, but only a fraction of them made it to the hastily erected refugee centres set up at sports stadiums, schools and churches throughout the region.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in seven counties, mobilizing all the state’s resources to fight what he called the “perfect firestorm”.
It was also the largest evacuation since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and was met with a much hastier response by government. Bush planned to visit the fire-struck region Thursday, a White House official said.
The US military activated hundreds of reservists and sent planes and helicopters to California to help combat the devastating fires, said Assistant Defence Secretary Paul McHale.
More than 1,500 National Guardsman were brought to active duty and placed under the command of Schwarzenegger to help in the firefighting. There are an additional 500 Marines at Camp Pendleton ready to act, McHale said.
TV images showed street after street in the San Diego suburbs reduced to rows of burning debris in a graphic illustration of how destructive the flames had been.
Weather forecasters predict that the high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds would persist for sometime to come. “There isn’t any (relief) in sight — the weather is complicating things for us,” San Diego mayor Jerry Sanders told a news conference.
There was better news to the north however, where the gale force winds were dying down, allowing firefighters and water-dropping aircraft to make progress in stopping two area fires from linking up into a single megablaze.
At least two people were killed by the fire and four more during evacuations. Over 40 people were injured including three firefighters with critical burns.
In San Diego alone, emergency services operators made some 400,000 calls to residents to inform them of the mandatory evacuations.
The evacuees gathered in a state of shock at the Qualcomm Stadium in downtown San Diego, at the city fairgrounds, at the Camp Pendelton Marine base and other military barracks. They also packed into hotels and motels across the region.
Officials called for donations of food, bedding and other supplies for the tens of thousands of refugees. Bush authorised the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief in the seven counties stricken by wildfires. Neighbouring states, including Nevada and Arizona, also rushed in crews and equipment.
“All of us across this nation are concerned for the families who have lost their homes and the many families who have been evacuated,” Bush said in Washington Tuesday.
According to the California Office of Forestry and Fire Protection, the blazes had burned more than 145,000 hectares in the region by Tuesday afternoon, stretching from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara, some 360 km to the north.
The fires also blazed to the east, where a huge wall of flames threatened the resort town of Lake Arrowhead and had burned about 125 houses.
The damage toll is expected to rise with few of the major fires effectively contained and fire crews too busy to inspect the damage. About 10,000 firefighters were battling to contain the blaze.
The two worst fires occurred near Malibu, where many of Hollywood’s elite keep beach homes, and around San Diego. Mel Gibson, Kelsey Grammer and Victoria Principal were among the celebrities forced to flee from the fire, their publicists said.
Fire experts fear even worse destruction from the current conflagration, after a year of record-low rainfall that helped create a bed of tinder-dry undergrowth in the region’s forests, grasslands and canyons. Satellite images showed a huge plume of smoke stretching out from southern California over the Pacific Ocean, indicating how strong the easterly winds were gusting.
The cause of the fires is being investigated, authorities said.