World | USA
16 houses burnt as wildfires ring California community
Hundreds of homes in the scenic community of Big Sur were threatened by a wildfire that already has burned 16 residences and was just 3 per cent contained.
- AP
- Published: 00:07 June 27, 2008
Berkeley, California: Hundreds of homes in the scenic community of Big Sur were threatened by a wildfire that already has burned 16 residences and was just 3 per cent contained.
About 700 wildfires, many of them sparked by a severe electrical storm over the weekend, burned across much of the state, a point driven home for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as he travelled to central California to assess the damage there.
"I just took off... from Los Angeles and, literally from Los Angeles all the way up here, there was smoke, so you can see that there's fire everywhere," Schwarzenegger said at a news conference on Wednesday in Monterey County.
Schwarzenegger also stopped on Wednesday in Butte County, where 27 lightning-sparked fires covering about 21 square kilometres were threatening 1,000 homes. The blazes, which were only 5 per cent contained, cropped up just as the county was recovering from a fire that charred 74 homes and 93 square kilometres earlier this month.
Fire crews have come in from Nevada and Oregon, and Schwarzenegger said he has called in the National Guard to help.
Firefighters scrambled to tame the wildfire in the Los Padres National Forest that has burned nearly 78 square kilometres near the coast about a mile south of Big Sur.
"Unfortunately, this fire is in an area that is going to be very difficult to stop, and expectations are there won't be any stopping this fire any time soon," said Mark Savage, a spokesman for the US Forest Service.
The state's largest fire was about 30 kilometres east in a more remote area of the Los Padres forest. The blaze, sparked by an escaped campfire on June 8, had scorched more than 238 square kilometres and destroyed two homes but was about 71 per cent contained.
Monterey sheriff's officials said mandatory evacuation orders were in place for both fires, but could not specify how many people were forced from their homes. The Monterey County fires have cost $33 million (Dh121.2 million) to fight so far.
Unfortunately, this fire is in an area that is going to be very difficult to stop, and expectations are there won't be any stopping this fire any time soon."
Mark Savage
US Forest Service spokesman
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