Washington wildfires destroy 100 homes and displace hundreds

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Residents of Pateros on Friday survey the ruins of their home, which was consumed by the Carlton Complex Fire, in Washington. Photograph: David Ryder/Reuters
A wildfire raging east of Washington state's Cascade Mountains has destroyed about 100 homes and displaced hundreds of people, an emergency official said on Saturday, with cooler weather not expected to provide relief for another day.
The four-blaze Carlton Complex fire destroyed homes in and around the town of Pateros, about 120 miles (193 km) north-east of Seattle, said Mark Clemens, a spokesman for the Washington emergency management division.
The town's 650 people were under mandatory evacuation orders, though some began returning on Friday to survey the charred remains of their homes and belongings. "Today is still a little bit dicey," Clemens said.
He said temperatures were not expected to drop or humidity rise until Sunday to help the 625 firefighters battling the blaze which has whipped through areas of timber and grass.
The Carlton Complex fire was triggered by lightning strikes on Monday. It has since burned more than 100,000 acres (40,500 hectares) of parched vegetation. The fire is among more than two dozen burning from southern California to Idaho as drought-parched western states enter their annual fire season.
The biggest fire, the lightning-sparked Buzzard Complex, has burned about 368,000 acres of rangeland in eastern Oregon and is about a fifth contained, said Rita Dyer, a fire spokeswoman.
Washington and Oregon have declared states of emergency as wildfires scorched thousands of acres, destroying homes, outbuildings and crops.

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Evacuation orders lifted as firecrews battle San Diego wildfires

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Some evacuation orders were lifted early on Friday in an area near the fiercest of several wildfires in San Diego County, as crews building containment lines around the blazes hoped cooler temperatures would help them make further progress.

County officials said residents of two neighbourhoods in San Marcos had been allowed to return home. A flare-up on Thursday in the north San Diego suburb prompted more than 18,000 new evacuation notices as flames raced through tinder-dry brush on hillsides. That fire was 10% contained on Friday morning.

Nine fires have destroyed at least eight houses, an 18-unit condominium complex and two businesses since Tuesday. The hardest-hit areas were in San Marcos and Carlsbad, a suburb of 110,000 people that lifted evacuation orders late on Thursday.

Firefighters found a badly burned body onThursday in a transient camp in Carlsbad – the first apparent fatality – and a Camp Pendleton Fire Department firefighter was treated for heat exhaustion.

To the north, crews battled two fires at Camp Pendleton, including one that broke out on Thursday and grew overnight from 600 acres to 8,000, base officials told KGTV. It was 10% contained. The second fire, sparked on Wednesday on the eastern outskirts of the Marine base, scorched nearly 10 square miles of dry brush. That blaze was 15% contained.

This week's unseasonably early wildfires have driven tens of thousands from their homes and shut down schools and amusement parks, including Legoland, which reopened on Thursday. Flames have caused more than $20m in damage.

Firefighters who have worked in temperatures sometimes topping 100F (38C) this week were expected to get relief on Friday. The forecast called for temperatures to peak around 90F and lighter winds. A bigger cool-down was forecast for the weekend.

It could take months to find the causes of the blazes concentrated in the northern San Diego and its northern suburbs, from the coast to areas 10 to 15 miles inland. San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said arson will be among the many possibilities investigators will look at.

Crews along with engines and aircraft were ready to spring into action when the first fire ignited on Tuesday, after being sent to the region in anticipation of a heat wave and gusty winds.

The positioning of crews was among several steps fire officials say they have been fine-tuning since 2003, when the San Diego area experienced one of the worst fires in California's history. Communications between firefighting agencies has improved, residents are notified more quickly when to evacuate, and more aircraft are available to dump water on fast-moving flames.

San Diego County had some of the strongest Santa Ana winds on Wednesday, with gusts reaching up to 50mph, which may have set conditions for fires to be easily ignited, just as they were in 2003. The 2003 Cedar Fire scorched more than 437 square miles, nearly 3,000 buildings – including more than 2,000 homes – and killed 15 people.

The tragedy led to California creating one of the world's most robust firefighting efforts, which resulted in the smooth evacuation of thousands this week and crews able to save hundreds of homes from being consumed by the fast-moving wildfires, said Battalion chief Nick Schuler of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Before another devastating wave of fires swept the San Diego region in 2007, the city and county introduced a “reverse 911” system of automated calls to homes and businesses. Previously, evacuations were accomplished by going door to door or driving down the streets with loudspeakers.

Upgrades at dispatch centres have allowed firefighting agencies to share resources far more quickly by computer, a contrast to 2003 when agencies had to pick up the phone to move engines around, said David Allen, division chief for the state firefighting agency.

There is also a stronger relationship between the state firefighting agency and the military, which had 22 aircraft fighting the fires Thursday.

Those procedures are expected to be tested further as drought-plagued California heads into the summer months of what is expected to be one of its busiest firefighting seasons yet.

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California battles fresh wildfires

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Fresh wildfires have broken out across parts of southern California, burning down dozens of homes and prompting authorities in San Diego county to evacuate thousands of people and declare a state of emergency.

Scorching temperatures and dry winds fanned at least five fast-moving blazes on Wednesday near San Diego just a day after firefighters contained two other fires in the region.

The worst blaze burned 30 homes in Carlsbad, north of San Diego, and triggered 11,500 evacuation notices.

A heat wave and tinder-dry brush had created a dynamic, dangerous situation, California fire captain Mike Mohler told local television reporters. “It's just unfortunately a recipe for a large fire and that’s what we’re seeing right now.”

Graphic: Paddy Allen

Television news footage showed homes reduced to smoking ruins as flames crackled through canyons, with smoke billowing so thick it blotted out the sun and motorists having to use headlights.

"At times it looks like there’s fire in the sky with the wind whipping back and forth," one witness, Ryan Marble, told the Los Angeles Times.

A fire near the Camp Pendleton military base burnt out 700 acres (280 hectares), prompting evacuations of homes and parts of the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

Ground crews backed by helicopters and air tankers contained two fires on Tuesday near San Diego and Santa Barbara, 250 miles north, but knew to expect more.

"Santa Ana winds, record heat and low humidity will persist in southern California through Thursday," said Jon Erdman, a meteorologist with weather.com. "Beginning Friday winds will begin to turn onshore, with much cooler 60s and 70s returning to the coast this weekend."

The fire in northern San Diego county flared on Tuesday morning near Rancho Bernado and by evening had burned 1,550 acres of canyons and ridges, threatening rural homes and triggering evacuation orders for 20,000 people, including several hundred within San Diego city limits.

Local fire departments and the state department of forestry and fire protection cut fires lines and used fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to douse the flames before they damaged property.

San Diego's mayor, Kevin Faulconer, praised the “fantastic teamwork” of local fire departments and the state department of forestry and fire protection. "Obviously the battle is not over."

The cause of the fires was not immediately known but this week's heatwave combined with brush left tinder-dry by years of drought created ideal conditions for wildfires.

The National Weather Service issued red-flag fire warnings and heat advisories for the region earlier in the week. Some forest roads were closed because of the danger.

California, braced for a worsening drought and water shortages this summer, received potentially good news last week: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration increased the probability for El Niño conditions developing next winter to 78%, up from 66% last month and 36% last November.

The El Niño weather phenomenon can produce wetter winters in California as warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean affect the jet stream.

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California wildfires: man charged with arson as firefighters gain ground

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Fire burns near a US marine corps base at Camp Pendleton, California. Photograph: Reuters

Calmer winds helped firefighters gain ground on Saturday against fires that have destroyed homes and raced through nearly 20,000 acres of northern and eastern San Diego County brush land.

Authorities charged a man for adding fuel to one of the nearly dozen blazes.

A new fire at the Camp Pendleton Marine base left some evacuations in place.

Thousands of firefighters and fleets of water-dropping military and civilian helicopters planned fresh battles on Saturday as investigators continued to seek the causes of the fires that burned at least eight homes and an 18-unit condominium complex, emptied neighbourhoods and spread fields of flame, smoke and ash that dirtied the air in neighbouring Orange County and as far north as Los Angeles County.

Alberto Serrato, 57, pleaded not guilty on Friday to an arson charge in connection with one of the smaller fires, a 105-acre fire in suburban Oceanside that started on Wednesday and is now fully contained.

Tanya Sierra, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County district attorney's office, said witnesses saw Serrato adding dead brush to smouldering bushes, which flamed up. He has not been connected to any other fire, Sierra said.

Oceanside police Lieutenant Sean Marshand said Serrato was believed to have added fuel to the fire but not to have started it.

"Unfortunately we don't have the guy that we really want," he said.

Serrato remained jailed on Friday; Sierra said she didn't know whether he had an attorney.

All together, the wildfires about 30 miles north of San Diego have caused more than $20m in damage.

Three fires continued to burn at Pendleton: a 15,000-acre blaze that began on Thursday was 40% contained, and a new fire on Friday that quickly grew to 800 acres was 25% surrounded that night. A 6,500-acre fire that started Wednesday at a neighbouring navy weapons station and rolled on to the base and the city of Fallbrook was 65% contained.

At their peak, the fires prompted about 8,400 military personnel and their families to be sent home from parts of the sprawling coastal base between Los Angeles and San Diego, but some housing-area evacuations were lifted, base spokesman Jeff Nyhart said.

The most destructive fires started in Carlsbad – a densely populated coastal suburb of 110,000 people where a badly burned body was found Thursday in a transient camp – and San Marcos, a neighbouring suburb of 85,000 people where strip malls and large housing tracts mix with older homes whose residents cherish their large lots and country living.

The Cocos Fire, which hopscotched through San Marcos and Escondido, was 70% contained Saturday morning after burning 2,520 acres, the county reported.

As some evacuations were lifted, residents returned to their homes not sure what they would find.

"We thought for sure it was gone," said Lauren Frost, 31, whose family had left their Escondido home for the second time in two days on Thursday and watched on television as flames burned across the street.

The Frost house survived, but two were reduced to rubble on Mount Whitney Street, about 30 miles north of San Diego.

The region had become a tinder box in recent days because of conditions not normally seen until late summer – extremely dry weather, 50mph Santa Ana winds and temperatures in the 90s fahrenheit. On Friday, slightly cooler weather and calming winds aided the 2,600 firefighters, and thousands of people began returning home.

Al Said of Escondido refused to evacuate and helped firefighters save his home with a garden hose. Two of his neighbours lost theirs.

"That house burned and the house next to it burned," he said. "By the grace of God and the hard work of these firefighters, they came in and they saved my house right here."

He's happy his home survived, "but yet I look at my neighbour's property and what do you say? Just devastating," he said.

Eight of the San Diego County blazes popped up between late morning and sundown on Wednesday, raising suspicions that some had been set.

In Carlsbad, investigators finished examining the burn site across the street from a park and focused on interviewing people who called a hotline that was set up to report any suspicious activity.

"Do people have suspicions? Yes," said police Captain Neil Gallucci, noting there has been no lightning that could explain the blazes. "But can we confirm them? The answer is no."

Police in Escondido arrested two people, ages 17 and 19, for investigation of arson in connection with two small fires that were extinguished within minutes. But they found no evidence linking the suspects to the 10 biggest wildfires.

The Bernardo fire, the first of the North County blazes to break out, burned 1,548 acres and was 95% contained by Friday night.

A backhoe operator at a development site accidentally started the fire while digging trenches, San Diego fire officials said on Friday.

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California wildfires force thousands to flee their homes in San Diego county video

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Wildfires in California - in pictures

Several wildfires have hit the San Diego area of California this week. Fires began erupting on Tuesday amid high heat, extremely low humidity and gusty Santa Ana winds. By Wednesday, nine fires were burning.

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Wildfires in California - in pictures

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