Fire Season Begins: Wildfires Rage in SoCal for Third Day
Fierce wildfires threatened Southern California for a third day Tuesday after leaving two people dead and heralding the start of the most intense period of the fire season here.
The most severe fires, fanned by harsh dry Santa Ana winds typical of the fall, were burning several thousand acres at the rim of the San Fernando Valley. And another surge of potentially more powerful Santa Ana winds bore down on Southern California early Tuesday.
A further 3,000 acres were scorched by early Tuesday morning in Camp Pendleton, forcing the evacuation of some housing areas, according to the huge facility’s website, but there had been no casualties and no structures had been destroyed.
On Monday, firefighters mounted an all-out air and land assault as the flames and smoke chased residents from their homes, threatened neighborhoods, closed schools and parts of two major freeways, and led Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.
Smaller fires broke out in San Diego and Orange Counties, while in Northern California firefighters were bringing under control a stubborn blaze on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, home to a historic immigration station. Only an abandoned water tank was destroyed there.
The cause of most of the blazes was not known, though at least one of the major fires here was thought to be of suspicious origin.
The outbreak of fires came one week shy of the first anniversary of a series of blazes in Southern California that destroyed more than 2,200 homes, killed 10 people, burned more than half a million acres from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara County and resulted in the largest evacuation in state history.
Published on October 14, 2008
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