Wildfires Ravish Southern California

News courtesy of CNN.com

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- More than a half million people had been ordered from San Diego County homes Tuesday as wildfires rage from the Mexican border to north of Los Angeles.


Fire burns early Tuesday in Chula Vista, south of San Diego, in a photo from Norman Arroyo.

Across Southern California, more than 1,300 homes had been reduced to ashes, officials said Tuesday.

About 1,000 homes have been destroyed in San Diego County alone.

A second civilian has died in the wildfires, the U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday afternoon. It provided no details.

Fears grew north of Los Angeles that the winds may fan three wildfires into one monster blaze. Some officials feared there were not adequate resources available to fight such a blaze. Watch a fire official describe "utter devastation" »

Those fires threaten more than 56,000 homes.

In San Diego County, at least 513,000 residents had been ordered to find refuge in shelters, schools and stadiums as fires pushed into new areas Tuesday. Twelve thousand more were advised but not ordered to evacuate.

The U.S. Navy ordered sailors out of barracks in the area and onto ships to make room for evacuees.

A spokesman for the county's emergency effort told Sacramento TV station KCRA that the evacuations amount to "a mass migration."

New evacuation orders are being added frequently to the San Diego Office of Emergency Services Web site.

San Diego City Councilman Brian Maienschein is walking neighborhoods and helping compile a list of homes that have been destroyed or badly damaged. He said officials will post the list on the city's Web site soon.

"People are worried," he said. "They just want to know, even if their homes are destroyed."

And officials said the crisis is far from over.

"It will not end ... until it reaches the ocean or the winds turn around," San Diego Fire Battalion Chief Bruce Cartelli said Tuesday.

Firefighters expected no break from the winds fueling the fires until midday Thursday, said Harvey Johnson, deputy administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At least 17 wildfires have scorched about 425 square miles from north of Los Angeles to southeast of San Diego since the weekend. Three of those fires were added to the list Tuesday.

Despite having 21 years experience as a firefighter, Arthur Jackson marveled at the fires he battled. "It is just amazing how this fire selects whatever it wants and burns whatever it wants," he told CNN.

Despite toiling in 24-hour shifts, Jackson said he and his fellow firefighters were "holding up pretty good." What weighed heaviest on them was not so much the physical exertion, he said, but knowing they had failed to protect all of the structures.

For some, the failure was more than a professional concern. "Some of the firefighters -- their own homes have burned up," he said.

In an e-mail to CNN, Jonathan Gallen, a doctor in Poway, described how the fires quickly closed in on his neighborhood Monday.

"My pool was completely black with soot. Like the 'Creature From the Black Lagoon' was about to walk out of there," Gallen wrote. "The soot was falling so heavily that it blocked out the sun. There was a smoke cloud above our home that seemed to stretch for miles. This was bad."

National Guard troops were posted at Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL's San Diego Chargers, as it became a temporary home to 12,000 to 15,000 fire evacuees, according to the mayor's office in San Diego. Watch evacuees try to pass the time as they worry about their homes »

Volunteers tried to keep spirits up by handing out chairs, cots, food and water. Many evacuees had red eyes from fatigue and smoke irritation.

Among the volunteers was Tony Bradley, a restaurant worker by night and a magician by day. He strode through the crowd captivating youngsters by twisting balloons into the shapes of animals. "That's what I'm here for, just to make them happy, make them forget about what's going on," he said.

Five of San Diego's 23 emergency shelters reached capacity Monday evening.

Sean McGough and his family fled their home in El Cajon for Qualcomm early Tuesday as the flames arrived.

"I looked out and saw the mountain engulfed in flames with a trail at least three miles long coming down," McGough said.

"When I went to bed at midnight, nothing in the East County was any immediate threat. ... Two hours later is when we got the news we needed to get out of our homes."

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Anticipating more arrivals at the stadium, the Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered 25,000 cots early Tuesday afternoon.

President Bush issued an emergency declaration Tuesday for seven California counties, clearing the way for federal disaster relief. The president will visit the area Thursday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Emergency officials asked for food and water for evacuees and told those still in their homes to cut electrical use so the power grid is not strained.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Federal Emergency Management Administration chief David Paulison flew to California Tuesday to get a first-hand look at relief efforts.

The response has been improved because of lessons learned from the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, officials said.

The Witch Fire consumed 164,000 acres, 500 homes and 100 commercial buildings between Sunday afternoon and early Tuesday, moving on a fast 20-mile westward path from its origins near Ramona into the more populated San Diego city limits and across Interstate 15. The Pacific coast was barely five miles west of the fire line early Tuesday. See photos of the fires »

"It's probably the worst this county has ever had, well in excess of the Cedar Fire. ... It looks like it's going to get worse, and we want everybody to be prepared and understand," San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender said.

Bush's declaration covers the same seven counties that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cited Monday: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura. See where fires burn across Southern California »

The U.S. Marines' Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, told only "key and essential personnel" to report to duty Tuesday. The Rice Fire is burning east of the base. At about 1 p.m. PT (4 p.m. ET), there were two fires burning on the property of Camp Pendleton.

Residents of Fallbrook, adjacent to Camp Pendleton, evacuated as the Rice Fire burned 1,500 acres, destroyed 50 homes and damaged 30 more in nearby Rice Canyon.

A "major natural gas line leading into" Fallbrook was ruptured Tuesday afternoon and is on fire, according to the California Highway Patrol Web site.

Southeast of San Diego, the Harris Fire burned 25,000 acres. The blaze claimed the one life on Sunday and injured 17 civilians and five firefighters. Watch report of a man who fled fire in Chula Vista »

Officials said they're concerned about the fire spreading to San Miguel Mountain, the site of important communications towers.

Early Tuesday, a new fire was reported on the La Jolla Indian Reservation, northeast of Escondido, according to a state fire report monitored by the San Diego Union-Tribune. The fire has destroyed 40 houses, and people were being evacuated to the nearby Palomar Observatory, the report said.

In northern Los Angeles County, three fires have charred nearly 93,000 acres, and fire officials said they fear the Ranch, Buckweed and Magic fires could merge.

"We want to keep these fires as small as we can," said Capt. Barry Parker of the Ventura County Fire Department. If they come together, he said, "the only good thing is we would be able to share more resources."

He added, "But we would rather keep the fires individually fought."

The 54,000-acre Ranch Fire grew by nearly 20,000 acres overnight and is two miles away from the 1,200-acre Magic Fire. The blazes were straddling the line between Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Parker said he wasn't sure if they had enough resources.

"We're using a limited amount of resources to go in and fight these fires," he said. "We've got about 600 people on the Ranch Fire; we normally would have about 1,500.

"So we have to be absolutely surgical in how we plan and how we tactically use our fire equipment because we just simply don't have enough fire engines in the state of California to battle these blazes."


Two fires that erupted Monday in San Bernardino County near Lake Arrowhead have destroyed at least 123 structures and charred 1,800 acres, said Loretta Benavidez, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest. Several communities in the area, including Green Valley Lake, Arrowbear and Running Springs, were evacuated.

Aerial views of the Lake Arrowhead fires showed more homes burning there Tuesday. E-mail to a friend