California screaming: wildfires rage
Updated on 24 October 2007
As fires rage out of control, the US experiences its biggest human evacuation in more than 200 years.
California's firefighters call it "bump and run" - if a house is already burning, forget it. Try and douse one that's not yet in flames. A million people evacuated, over 600 square miles now cinders - and of course the risk of more deaths.
The state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger took to the skies to survey the damage - urging the president, no less to declare a major national disaster. Determined this would be no Hurricane Katrina, George Bush is planning to visit California tomorrow. This morning he promised all the help he could muster.
As they struggled overnight - for many, the fourth in a row - firefighters complain their early efforts were hampered by a lack of resources.
NASA satellite photos
The growing size of California's wildfires can be seen in these Nasa photos:
See the photos
There are now at least 16 blazes torching California from Malibu to the Mexico border. By yesterday the state had 50 aircraft and 40 helicopters and 1500 California National Guard Troops were working with 1,500 firefighters.
Soon to be deployed another 10 helicopters, two from the US Navy in San Diego and two from the Nevada National Guard; two DC-7 water carriers from Oregon and one water-dropping plane from Canada. There are now over ten thousand on the front lines.
550 Marines have volunteered from Camp Pendleton and 15,000 more California National Guardsmen are available if needed.
Timeline
11.35 - Sunday morning: there were plumes already clearly visible as superheated desert air, under 10 per cent humidity, funnelled down the canyons towards the coast.
2.50 - Sunday: afternoon gusts of up to 100mph had spread the smoke way across the Pacific.
Monday: the satellite shows blazes from the north of LA to southeast of San Diego.
Affluent southern California couldn't be more removed from decadent New Orleans. Yet the scenes of 10,000 evacuees hunkering down in San Diego's football stadium are eerily reminiscent of the biggest natural disaster in American history.
With reports of looters raiding the one in three homes here now empty - many people wary of fleeing till the very last minute. This is another source of criticism - wildfire researchers in Australia finding mass evacuation orders cause panic and inevitable injury and death.
In 1991 the Oakland Hills fire killed 26 - insurers paid out nearly $2bn in rebuild costs. Fires in October 2003 damaging as much if not more - nearly 3000 square kilometres razed to the ground. This week - already costing an estimated billion dollars.
California's annual wildfires are fuelled by the notorious Santa Ana winds - when the rules of nature apparently reversed with tornados made entirely of flames
The Santa Ana normally blows itself out after a couple of days - but this has been an almost week long freak show. The hope is the cold Pacific will soon push cooler, moist air back inland.
So take the driest conditions for two centuries - and add pressure to build on more and more marginal land - when wildfires take hold, the results are devastating. These natural blazes are considered an environmental hazard in America's tinderbox southwest - but a problem many scientists warn with global warming will only get worse.
