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Firefighters battle raging wildfires
Firefighters from neighbouring states arrived in California to help Monday after an "unprecedented" lightning storm sparked more than 800 blazes, from Big Sur to wine country to Humboldt County.
- AP
- Published: 00:01 June 25, 2008
San Francisco: Firefighters from neighbouring states arrived in California to help Monday after an "unprecedented" lightning storm sparked more than 800 blazes, from Big Sur to wine country to Humboldt County.
Thousands of firefighters battled the wildfires on the ground and from the air and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was alarmed by the number of fires that kept erupting.
He said he was told late Sunday evening that the state had 520 fires, and he found it "quite shocking" that by morning the number had risen above 700.
Moments later, a top state fire official offered a grim update: The figure was actually 842 fires, said Del Walters, assistant regional chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
All but a couple of the fires were in the northern part of the state.
5,000 to 6,000 strikes
"This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, [in] that it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes," Walters said. "We are finding fires all the time."
The assistance, mostly from firefighting aircraft, arrived Monday from Nevada and Oregon after being requested over the weekend.
Schwarzenegger said he had enlisted the help "because you can never prepare for 500 or 700 or 800 fires all at the same time."
"We didn't get real lucky with this lighting storm," Walters said. "It wasn't predicted - which often happens with these storms that come in off the Pacific, there's no history of the weather as it approaches the shore - and so we got hammered."
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