World | USA
Wildfires send 30,000 people scurrying to safety in California
Turning the horizon a lurid orange and raining embers on roofs as it advanced, a raging wildfire menaced Santa Barbara and other coastal towns in California on Friday.
- Agencies
- Published: 21:04 May 9, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- A helitanker drops fire retardant along mountain slopes in Santa Barbara, California. The four-day-old blaze has spread to 3,500 acres and containment efforts have been only about 10 per cent effective up to now.
Santa Barbara, California: Turning the horizon a lurid orange and raining embers on roofs as it advanced, a raging wildfire menaced Santa Barbara and other coastal towns in California on Friday.
The number of people ordered to flee climbed to more than 30,000 as the blaze destroyed scores of homes in the hills of Santa Barbara. Authorities put an additional 23,000 on notice to be ready to leave at short notice, despite improving weather conditions.
"There will be a point in the incident when I will have cautious optimism but I'm not there yet," said Joe Waterman, the overall fire commander from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Columns of smoke rose off the Santa Ynez Mountains as the four-day-old blaze grew to 3,480 hectares, creating a firefighting front five miles long.
"It's crazy. The whole mountain looked like an inferno," said Maria Martinez, 50, who with her fiance hurriedly left her home in San Marcos Pass, on the edge of Santa Barbara. The couple went to an evacuation centre at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Fierce "sundowner" winds that sweep down the slopes in the evening didn't happen as predicted, but Santa Barbara County fire chief Tom Franklin warned they could return "and blow the fire back downhill". Instead, breezes blew in from the Pacific Ocean late on Friday, pushing the fire away from homes, he said.
Officials estimated 80 homes were destroyed in neighbourhoods on ridges and in canyons above Santa Barbara. No deaths or serious injuries were reported.
The number of people ordered to evacuate rose to 30,500 on Friday from 12,000 the night before as the blaze pushed west toward neighbouring Goleta and east toward well-to-do Montecito.
In a scene of strange contrasts, students bicycled to classes and midterm exams as ash fell on campus, and boats bobbed in Santa Barbara's harbour as smoke rose from the mountains above town.
More than 2,300 firefighters battled the blaze, using at least 246 engines, 14 air tankers and 15 helicopters. A DC-10 jumbo jet tanker capable of dumping huge loads of retardant began making runs on the fire in the afternoon.
Fire officials doubled the fire's size estimate based on more accurate surveying from aircraft during daytime flights. The smaller estimate came from firefighters at night on the ground.
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