S. California fires still angry, deadly
Combined News Services
Article Last Updated: 10/26/2007 03:54:05 AM MDT




Shelters were emptying and many threatened homes were spared in Southern California on Thursday, but the full extent of destruction still was being tallied and several new areas were evacuated ahead of those blazes that firefighters hadn't corralled. Thousands of houses remained under threat from advancing flames and the death toll rose with the discovery of six bodies.

Only those who have seen a wildfire up close really know what it's like, said Dan Stucki, 25, a firefighter from Cottonwood Heights, Utah, who is a member of the federally funded Cedar City Hotshots fire crew. The crew was among dozens of units from throughout the West that have scrambled here to help local departments fight the 16 fires from north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border.

Most of the public doesn't understand the intensity of the battle against the fires that has been taking place this week in Southern California, Stucki said: ''They think we're all spraying water.''

Four bodies were found Thursday in a canyon near the Mexican border, and two were found in a burned home in the northern part of San Diego County.

''The fires are winding down. We're starting to get control, except for the major fires in San Diego,'' said Bill Peters, spokesman for the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. ''We'll get them out, shifting more and more resources down there. And the weather helps.''



Progress in the exhausting fight came as President Bush began a visit to Southern California to tour fire-ravaged areas. The president was welcomed by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and promptly set off on a helicopter tour of the scorched landscape.

''I've come to make sure the federal government provides the help for people down at the local level,'' Bush told a crowd of hundreds of firefighters at a command post at Kit Carson Park in Escondido in northern San Diego County.

The president and Schwarzenegger gave each other credit for what they described as the prompt and effective response of state and federal agencies that had kept the number killed by the fires low, though the inferno has devastated 753 square miles and will end up causing more than $1 billion in damage.

''I think we have learned a lot from the past mistakes and we're much stronger now,'' said Schwarzenegger, alluding to the 2003 fires that charred 1,171 square miles, killed 24 people and destroyed 3,600 homes.

Some local experts say the state and federal governments had not learned enough and that many of the recommendations of a blue-ribbon commission set up after the fires four years ago had not been followed.

Former San Diego fire chief Jeff Bowman noted that the commission recommended that the state add 150 firetrucks, upgrade its firefighting helicopter fleet and improve coordination with the military in order to get Army and Marine helicopters in the air more quickly. None of that happened, Bowman said.

''I think people need to be held accountable for what they've done and what they haven't done,'' he said.

State officials insisted that they had enough equipment to battle the blazes but were hampered, not by bureaucratic lethargy, but by the strong Santa Ana winds that made it too dangerous to fly.

''Yes, we have enough resources,'' Peters said. ''We also have the safety of the operators to keep in mind. When you have winds 25 or 30 knots, you can't fly in those conditions.''

Across the region, 10,693 people fought fires, using 1,293 fire engines. As the fires in some areas - notably Los Angeles County - are put down, crews are dispatched to San Diego and San Bernardino, where large fires still rage.

''You see what I mean,'' Peters said. ''The resources are there.''
The five-day fight, however, tested the stamina of many of the firefighters.

At a base camp in the eastern San Diego County suburb of El Cajon, crews from across California, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Tijuana, Mexico, rolled in exhausted, and some stocked up on Gatorade, lip balm and energy bars for another turn at the front lines of the 81,000-acre Harris fire.

Fire crews from San Diego County swapped T-shirts and hats with the crew from Mexico - ''Tijuana Bomberos,'' the hats read - as souvenirs.

''We got our quarter-million-dollar trucks here, and they're hanging off their $5,000 rigs, and they're here helping us,'' Greg Groves, a firefighter from Carlsbad, said with a laugh. ''Usually it's the other way around.''

The base camp sprawls across a dirt square of Gillespie Field, an airport with room for helicopters to land and fire engines to refuel. Tents and trailers provide places for sleeping, showering and eating, plus a few extras such as the chiropractor's tent, staffed by a volunteer who spent the early part of his week evacuated.

As firefighters battled the blazes, police stepped up their investigation into the possibility that some of the fires in the Los Angeles area were intentionally set, offering rewards for information that leads to the arrest of any arson suspects.

In Los Angeles, police arrested a man after witnesses reported seeing him light a fire on a hillside in the San Fernando Valley on Wednesday and then walk away. Police identified the man as Catalino Pineda, 41, a native of Guatemala who is on probation for making false emergency reports.

In Orange County, Fire Chief Chip Prather told reporters that investigators have pinpointed arson as the cause of a blaze known as the Santiago fire. As of Thursday, the fire had destroyed 22 homes and other buildings and injured four firefighters, California fire officials said.

Prather said the state government, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have each pledged $50,000 in reward money.

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