A fleet of aircraft, including a DC-10 that can swoop in with 12,000 gallons of fire retardant, made sorties over the Zaca Fire. The 215,692-acre blaze, equivalent to 337 square miles, was 77% surrounded, with full containment not expected until Sept. 7.

The new blaze erupted on the west side of Highway 1 south of Lompoc and was blown east across 250 acres toward wineries and ranches, said Santa Barbara County fire spokesman Michael Burke.

The fire was 50% contained by evening but residents on a rural road off the highway were warned to be ready to evacuate. A firefighter was treated for a minor injury.

Full containment was expected Tuesday evening, Burke said, and the cause of the blaze was under investigation.

The Zaca blaze erupted July 4 and has become the third-largest wildfire in California history as it has marched eastward through a vast swath of rugged wilderness in the interior of Santa Barbara County toward neighboring Ventura County.

The 3,162 firefighters on the ground face rugged terrain, temperatures in the 90s and extremely low humidity levels. The area hasn't burned in 75 to 100 years, fire bosses said.

"The fuel conditions are extreme. The chaparral we're working with is literally explosive," said incident commander Mike Dietrich of the U.S. Forest Service.

As a precaution, residents on 30 to 40 ranches off Highway 33 in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties were advised to move large animals out of the area and be prepared to get out.

"They are trying to corral the fire away from them," fire spokesman Victor Gutierrez said Monday, noting firefighters were using backfires to eliminate fuel and starve flames.

A 45-mile stretch of Highway 33 was closed from Wheeler Gorge, north of Ojai, to the mountain hamlet of Ventucopa.

The fire was still 17 air miles north of the Ventura County community of Ojai and 10 miles east of Montecito and Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County, Gutierrez said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Sunday for Ventura County, clearing the way for state government cost assistance.

Sparks from equipment being used to repair a water pipe ignited the blaze north of Los Olivos on July 4. Firefighting costs have exceeded $85 million.

The state's biggest wildfire was the 2003 Cedar Fire near San Diego, which burned more than 273,000 acres, destroyed 4,847 structures and killed 15 people.

In 1932, the Matilija Fire burned about 220,000 acres in the Los Padres National Forest, near the current Zaca blaze.

---

Aug 27, 12:44 PM (ET)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - A helicopter swooped into a village in southern Greece to rescue residents trapped by flames on Monday - one of dozens of fires that have torn through village and forest across the country, leaving blackened landscape in their wake.

The fires have killed 63 people over four days, destroying everything in their path. One broke out on the fringe of Athens Monday, but was quickly brought under control. Another scorched the woodland around the birthplace of the Olympics.

A woman found dead on Friday with her arms around the bodies of four children had fled her home - the only house left standing in the village, said a neighbor in the Peloponnese town of Artemida. The home's white walls and red tile roof were unscathed.

"Nothing would have happened to them. The few that stayed didn't get injured, but most people left to escape, everyone, and only two or three stayed behind," said the neighbor, Vassiliki Tzevelekou.

A helicopter airlifted five people to safety on Monday from the village of Prasidaki in southern Greece, said fire department spokesman Yiannis Stamoulis. Another was sent to the village of Frixa.

Fueled by strong, hot winds and parched grass and trees, the fires have engulfed villages, forests and farmland. New blazes broke out faster than others could be brought under control.

"The whole village is burning. It's been burning for three days," one woman sobbed, clutching her 20-month-old daughter as they sheltered in a church along with dozens of others near Figalia, elsewhere in the western Peloponnese.

Dimitris Papangelopoulos, who is responsible for prosecuting terrorism and organized crime, ordered an investigation to determine "whether the crimes of arsonists and of arson attacks on forests" could come under Greece's anti-terrorism law, the Public Order Ministry said.

Forest fires are common during Greece's hot, dry summers - but nothing has approached the scale of the past three days.

"So many fires breaking out simultaneously in so many parts of the country cannot be a coincidence," Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in a nationally televised address on Saturday.

Several people have been arrested on suspicion of arson since Friday, although some were accused of starting fires through negligence rather than intent. One man, however, was charged with arson and homicide in connection with a fire near the southern town of Areopolis on Friday that killed six people.

Building on forest land is forbidden in Greece, but unscrupulous developers are blamed for setting fires to forests in an effort to circumvent the law by disputing the area's status. Greece has no land registry, so once a region has been burned and cleared, there is no definitive proof of whether it was initially forest, farm or field.

"It is rather late now, but the state should designate these areas to be immediately reforested, map them and complete the forest registry without further delay," said Yiannis Revythis, chairman of the association of Athens real estate agents.

The destruction has infuriated Greeks - already stunned by deadly forest fires in June and July. Outraged residents heckled Culture Minister George Voulgarakis Sunday when he visited Ancient Olympia to see the firefighting efforts.

"The government was totally unable to deal with this situation," said Gerassimos Kaproulias, an Ancient Olympia schoolteacher.

From Sunday morning to Monday morning alone, 89 new fires broke out, fire department spokesman Nikos Diamandis said.

"This is an immense ecological disaster," said Theodota Nantsou, WWF Greece Conservation Manager. "We had an explosive mixture of very adverse weather conditions, tinder-dry forests - to an extent not seen for many years - combined with the wild winds of the past two weeks. It's a recipe to burn the whole country."

The government appealed for help from abroad, and 19 countries were sending planes, helicopters and firefighters, including France, which dispatched four water-tanker planes and Russia, which was sending three helicopters and an amphibian plane.

The fires hit during the traditional August holidays when villages across Greece are filled with people Athens and other large cities returning to their ancestral areas.

Desperate residents appealed through television stations for help from a firefighting service already stretched to the limit. The government declared a state of emergency on Saturday.

The worst of the fires are concentrated in the mountains of the Peloponnese in the south and on the island of Evia north of Athens. Strong winds blew smoke and ash over the capital, blackening the evening sky and turning the rising moon red.

In the ravaged mountain villages in the Peloponnese, rescue crews found a grim scene that spoke of last-minute desperation as the fires closed in. Dozens of charred bodies have been found across fields, homes, along roads and in cars.

Weekend wildfires also killed two elderly people in neighboring Bulgaria, officials said Monday. They died in a fire that burned down their house in the southern village of Prisadets, said Darina Stamatova, spokeswoman of the regional administration.

An Associated Press photographer on the scene said almost all houses in the villages of Prisadets, Varnik and Filipovo were destroyed by the flames.

A blistering hot summer has led to more than a thousand wildfires across Bulgaria in the past three months burning down 84,000 acres of forests and farm fields, the government said.

Associated Press writers John F.L. Ross in Ancient Olympia and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS the name of the neighbor to Vassiliki Tzevelekou.)

Idaho fire continues to threaten homes

Thousand homes in Ketchum area remain evacuated; red flag warning posted.

Firefighters stage burn out
operations on Castle Rock fire in Idaho.
Credit: Mike Powell

 

BOISE, Idaho | August 26, 200

 

Residents in the Ketchum area remained out their homes Sunday after a mandatory evacuation order was issued as the Castle Rock wildfire surged and continued to burn closer to homes. A red flag warning was posted Sunday for the fire area.

Firefighters were reported to be "actively defending" some houses from the blaze. Officials said public schools in the Wood River Valley would be closed Monday and Tuesday due to the fire. Snowmaking equipment at the Sun Valley resort was pressed into service to protect the ski area and the multimillion dollar Seattle Ridge Lodge as flames spread up Bald Mountain.

The evacuation order was issued Saturday night for about 1,000 homes south of Ketchum. It comes on top of a previous evacuation order for about 100 homes, including some in the trendy Sun Valley resort community. An emergency shelter was opened in Hailey and was being staffed by the American Red Cross.

In California, meantime, a "recommended evacuation" order for about 20 homes in Ventura County was lifted Monday as containment on the Zaca wildfire reached 90 percent. Officials also reopened Highway 33.

The fire, which has burned 240,207 acres, was still expected to be fully contained by Sept. 7. The number of firefighters battling the blaze dropped to about 2,000, down from the more than 3,000 at the height of the effort. The fire has been burning in the backcountry wilderness area since July 4. The cost of fighting the fire has surpassed $104 million.

In Idaho, meantime, the lightning-sparked Castle Rock fire grew to 41,000 acres and pushed by gusty winds continued to threaten homes. It was being fought by 1,400 firefighters. The fire was 38 percent contained.

Meantime, voluntary evacuations remained in place for the Idaho communities of Secesh, Warren and South Fork still threatened by the East Zone Complex of four fires. The fire, started by lightning July 7 northeast of McCall, has burned nearly 205,000 acres and was 10 percent contained.

The largest fire in the state remained the Cascade Complex of three fires, which has charred more than 226,000 acres since it started July 17. The fire, burning southeast of Cascade, was 23 percent contained.

Elsewhere across the nation, more than three dozen large wildfires were burning, more than half of them in Idaho and Montana, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise reported.

In Montana, where most evacuation orders have been lifted, firefighters continued to battle about 16 wildfires.

The largest of the blazes was the nearly 100,000-acre Chippy Creek fire southwest of Kalispell. That fire was 70 percent contained with full containment expected Monday. Some evacuations remained in place with 350 residences threatened.

The Ahorn fire, started by lightning July 11, has charred 47,000 acres and was 10 percent contained. The fire was burning 30 miles west of Augusta and some pre-evacuations were in place for the Gibson Reservoir, Stoner, and Benchmark areas.

A mandatory evacuation order has been is

---

Wildfires rage in bone-dry California

9-5-07

 

By KARL PUCKETT
Tribune Staff Writer

A fire Tuesday quickly blackened almost 300 acres of Crown Butte, but property owners and fire officials were not complaining afterward.

Two cabins, and a preserve located on top, went untouched. That was good news, considering the blaze was threatening to jump the prairie landmark and make a run toward Simms.

MORGAN HILL, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters worked to contain several wildfires burning throughout California Wednesday amid hopes that cooler temperatures expected in the coming days would help them get a handle on the blazes. The fires flared up over the weekend, when temperatures surged past 110 degrees in some parts of the state, creating tinder-like conditions in areas already starved of water by an unusually dry winter. More than 1,200 firefighters in Northern California's Henry W. Coe State Park battled an 11,000-acre wildfire that forced rangers to evacuate hikers and campers. The blaze, which began Monday in the area about 20 miles southeast of San Jose, was fanned by hot, dry winds that pushed the flames through rugged, steep terrain, officials said. It was 20% contained by nightfall Tuesday. Some private cabins in the park were threatened, but an outbuilding was the only structure destroyed so far, officials said. Homes outside the park were not immediately threatened. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Tuesday | California | Firefighters | Wildfires | Morgan Hill To the south, in the Angeles National Forest, a four-day-old fire about 10 miles east of Santa Clarita grew to 2,100 acres, but Forest Service spokeswoman Stanton Florea said hundreds of firefighters made progress in their efforts to cut a line around the blaze, which was 46% contained. Firefighters ordered the voluntary evacuation of 25 rural homes south of Acton on Monday, but no new evacuations were ordered Tuesday. No injuries were reported, and no structures had burned. Milder weather also helped firefighters quell a 300-acre blaze that erupted near Elizabeth Lake in the Lancaster area, Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector Jason Hurd said. "It's pretty much a done deal, we're basically in the mop-up stages," Hurd said. "The weather was pretty decent today." Meanwhile, firefighters tackling an 85-acre wildfire in the San Bernardino National Forest at the east end of Big Bear Lake declared the blaze 100% contained Tuesday. Firefighters also announced the containment Tuesday of 170-acre blaze that temporarily closed a nearly 20-mile stretch of Highway 101 along Santa Barbara County's Gaviota coast. Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

These volunteers did a wonderful job," said Ray Goff, the owner of 3 Buttes Cattle Co., which had the most land burned. Crown Butte is located seven miles south of Simms and 35 miles southwest of Great Falls. The fire was reported on the butte's south side at about 8:45 a.m. Members of the Cascade Colony saw a lightning strike and later witnessed the fire flare. They tried to fight it but they didn't have any equipment. "When it burned, it burned very quickly," Goff said. It was declared contained at 2:30 p.m., but helicopters with the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation were still dropping water as of 5 p.m. Some 60 firefighters from Simms, Fort Shaw, Vaughn and Cascade fought it, with help from helicopter pilots from the state DNRC. It was nip and tuck for a few hours. Firefighters could not reach fire burning in a coulee — a coulee that could have provided a pathway to the top of the butte. From there, the fire would have headed north toward Simms. "When it gets on top we're going to be in trouble again," incident commander Dave Anderson, the Fort Shaw fire chief, said at about noon. At the time, lines of orange flames were nibbling across the grass. Trucks, tilted at angles, were moving up the side of the butte. Firefighters aimed water hoses or dug fire line. After repeated requests for a helicopter, two finally reported. Anderson said later the helicopters had been diverted from other fires. The fire area was between 500 and 1,000 acres, Anderson said, but just 286 burned. The two cabins were owned by 3 Buttes. Goff credited steel roofs and strategic placement of gravel for their survival. The fire never did make it to the preserve on top of Crown Butte, which stands 900 feet above the prairie. The preserve is owned by The Nature Conservancy. "We were planning to take the hike up to the top," Dan MacFarlane of Connecticut said as he watched the fire. "Not today." Rancher Ron Long, noting the abundance of rattlesnakes living on the butte, said he's expecting some additional snakes around his place thanks to the fire. "It will move them around, I'm sure," he said. Lightning also was blamed for starting a fire near Prewett Creek two miles northwest of the Hardy Creek bridge off of Interstate 15. Greg Moore of the Dearborn fire department said the fire was not threatening structures. Meteorologist Jerome Saucier of the National Weather Service in Great Falls said showers and lightning strikes were out in front of a large cold front that's moving into the area from the southwest. Today's forecast calls for a high of 77 in Great Falls. Reach Tribune Staff Writer Karl Puckett at 791-1471, 800-438-6600 or kpuckett@greatfallstribune.com. Three firefighters braced themselves against the heat and flames from a burning house in Rancho Bernardo in San Diego County. By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD Published: October 23, 2007 LOS ANGELES, Oct. 22, 2007 — More than a quarter of a million people were urged to flee their homes on Monday as wildfires ravaged Southern California for a second day, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and charring swaths of scrub and forestland. The fires, a Hydra with at least 15 separate burns in seven counties fed by gale-force winds, burned some 267,000 acres from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Engines and firefighters from as far as Nevada and Arizona were summoned as resources were stretched to the limit. Houses burned with no firefighters in sight as emergency crews on the ground and in the air struggled to keep up with shifting wind that fanned new fires and made others recede and reignite. Officials marveled that there had been just one death, in a fire in southeastern San Diego County on Sunday that also injured several people, including four firefighters. But thousands of residents remained just one step ahead of the flames. His face smudged with ash, Bruce Gallagher fled in a motor home as flames approached his house in Ramona, San Diego County. He roamed the parking lot of a mall in Escondido, carrying two large plastic bottles in search of water. “I have a feeling it’s probably gone,” Mr. Gallagher said of his home. About 1,500 National Guard troops, including 200 diverted from the border, were deployed to help with evacuation and crowd control, mostly in the San Diego area, which appeared to be the hardest hit. There, seven fires intensified and forced the largest evacuation ever in San Diego County, including entire towns like Ramona and Rancho Santa Fe in the rustic northern stretches. A total of 250,000 people were urged to evacuate. Nearly 600 homes and 100 commercial buildings have burned in Southern California, most in San Diego County. Late Monday, about 15,100 were considered threatened. State emergency officials said they feared that the fires, devouring some of the thickest and driest brush in years, could surpass the destruction of 2003, when California experienced its worst fire season on record. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had declared a state of emergency in seven counties on Sunday, said President Bush had called to offer federal assistance with the blazes, which could take several days to extinguish. In San Diego, some worry the flames will advance from inland mountains to the Pacific Ocean. “This is a major emergency,” said Ron Roberts, chairman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. “The speed with which these fires are moving, because of the wind, they are probably unlike anything we’ve seen before.” Thousands of uprooted people in San Diego County descended on Qualcomm Stadium near downtown and the Del Mar Fairgrounds north of the city, both of which opened as emergency shelters, while other people jammed freeways or made desperate bids to save their homes with garden hoses. San Diego is particularly haunted by wildfires. The worst one in state history burned nearly 750,000 acres in 2003, destroyed 3,600 homes and other buildings, and killed 24 people across Southern California, with much of the damage and more than a dozen of the deaths in San Diego County. Officials there said those memories prompted swift action this time as the latest fire burned in much of the same area and same direction as 2003. The San Diego Wild Animal Park, a major tourist draw, was closed and the animals were moved to safer quarters while owners of horses throughout northern San Diego also rushed to save their animals. Because of the fires’ erratic nature, state officials had difficulty compiling accurate data on the scope of the damage or progress in controlling them. Just as state officials at a midmorning news conference in Malibu were declaring a fire in suburban Los Angeles the state’s top priority, San Diego officials were issuing sweeping evacuation orders and television showed images of scores of buildings burning in a remote area of Los Angeles. The hot, gusting winds, not expected to let up until late Tuesday, at times grounded fire-fighting airplanes, which are pivotal for their ability to dump tremendous amounts of water and fire retardant. “We have to just pray the wind slows down because the wind is the No. 1 enemy in the dry weather,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in Malibu, where a large fire destroyed landmarks Sunday and flared anew after dying down somewhat overnight. Some of the fires appeared to have been started by downed power lines, but a few were thought to have been caused by arson. Brush and small trees burned in most cases, but firefighters faced a difficult problem northeast of Los Angeles at the Lake Arrowhead resort, where a forest fire erupted early in the afternoon and added to the plume of smoke hanging over most of the region. Towers of flame tore through houses and other structures there, and water-dropping aircraft did not arrive for a few hours as they fought a larger fire 70 miles away in heavily populated Santa Clarita Valley, a typical dilemma firefighters faced. Scenes of residents taking matters into their own hands played out as some fires burned for long periods without a firefighter in sight. Dozens of men, women and children in Canyon Country, north of Los Angeles, grabbed shovels and garden hoses and fought flames creeping up a canyon within 50 feet of their homes. About seven children and young teenagers worked in tandem with their parents as the flames approached their back fences. “That was hot!” said Steven Driedger, 14, as he examined his scratched legs for signs of a burn. “But I’m fine.” Steven’s mother, Carolyn Driedger, said the family, along with their neighbors, had been battling the blaze since 4 a.m. “Our neighborhood has really come together,” Ms. Driedger said, as a firefighting crew finally pulled up in the late morning. “We had to. These are the first official firefighters we’ve seen.” In some of the day’s only good news, firefighters made significant progress in surrounding a fire in Orange County without a single home lost. Reporting was contributed by Will Carless from Escondido, Ana Facio Contreras from Irvine, Larry Dorman from Poway and Regan Morris from Canyon Country. Wildfires rage in California for third day Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:17pm ET By Dana Ford SAN DIEGO, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Wildfires stoked by fierce winds burned unchecked across Southern California for a third day on Tuesday with 300,000 people in San Diego alone evacuated as flames destroyed or threatened homes from humble forest cabins to luxury villas. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders told people to "stay at home, stay off the freeways" so fire crews and evacuees could keep moving as the winds changed course. He said about 1,000 homes in San Diego County had been destroyed.   "We are in for another very dangerous day today. We may be forced to do very quick and immediate evacuations," said Ron Lane, head of San Diego County office of emergency services. "We no doubt are going to be issuing additional evacuation notices today," he added. The Marine base at Camp Pendleton, one of the largest in the United States, was on alert for possible evacuation of its 60,000 people, including families. Officials said people were cooperating and evacuating quickly, resulting in minimal loss of life.   Tens of thousands in San Diego County, including elderly evacuees from nursing homes, spent the night in the Qualcomm sports stadium or the Del Mar Fairgrounds, as did thousands of pets and horses. Just one person has died, in a San Diego fire on Sunday, and some three dozen have been injured. The fires, whipped by hot, dry Santa Ana winds gusting to 70 miles per hour (113 kph) have swept the drought stricken region unchecked over the past two days from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border 230 miles (370 km) to the south. The National Weather Service said "strong and damaging winds" will continue near Los Angeles through mid-afternoon, and high wind warnings may be issued for some areas Tuesday night. In San Diego, the strong winds fanning the flames were expected through Wednesday. Some 300,000 acres (120,000 hectares) have burned, about the size of the city of Los Angeles, overwhelming fire crews and state emergency services. BUSH DECLARES EMERGENCY Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger summoned aid from 1,500 National Guard troops, including 200 from the Mexican border, to help with firefighting, evacuations and crowd control. Neighboring states, including Nevada and Arizona, rushed in crews and equipment. President George W. Bush early on Tuesday declared an emergency in the state and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief in the seven counties stricken by wildfires. Among the thousands at the Qualcomm stadium were about 300 people evacuated from nursing homes. Volunteers set up tents for families and seniors in the walkways of the stadium. "There's no word on our house," said Don Parmaley, who was at the stadium with his wife, Rose. "We were able to find a hotel room last night (Sunday) but they had to evacuate the hotel this morning (Monday)." The firestorms closed major state highways, schools and businesses and plumes of thick black smoke drifted across much of Southern California, blotting out the sun. One official said the Witch Fire could prove as devastating as 2003's so-called Cedar Fire that burned 280,000 acres (110,000 hectares) and killed 15 people. A blaze in the seaside enclave of Malibu that had blackened 2,400 acres (970 hectares) was partly contained, having destroyed 10 buildings including a landmark castle and a church. (Additional reporting by Marty Graham in San Diego) © Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.     FIRE DATABASE DREAMS OF THE GREAT EARTHCHANGES - MAIN INDEX