Weather helps crews battling Calif's fire
LOS ANGELES (AP) - July 6, 2008 The four-day-old fire in the Los Padres National Forest, which
had blackened about 13 square miles, spread slightly during the
night but firefighting crews were able to keep u with it, county
spokeswoman Vickie Guthrie said.
As of Sunday morning, the fire in the area of the town of Goleta
was 28 percent contained, she said.
And with lower wind and higher humidity forecast for Sunday,
crews were optimistic they could get more acreage under control.
Temperatures were forecast to reach the upper 70s later Sunday.
"They expect to make progress today," Guthrie said.
Wildfires have charred more than 800 square miles of forest,
brush and grass and have destroyed at least 69 homes throughout
California, mainly in the northern part of the state, in the past
two weeks. One firefighter died of a heart attack.
According to state forestry officials, at one time there were
more than 1,700 active fires, but about 1,400 had been contained,
leaving more than 330 still out of control Sunday morning.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who on Saturday visited a command
post in the coastal region of Santa Barbara County, has ordered 400
National Guard troops trained to help fight the blazes. He also
urged lawmakers to adopt his budget plan for a $70 million
emergency surcharge on home and business insurance policies to buy
more firefighting equipment.
Nearly 2,700 homes in Santa Barbara County remained under
mandatory evacuation orders Sunday and residents of 1,400 others
were warned to be ready to flee.
The fire, fueled by 15-foot-high, half-century-old chaparral,
still had the potential to roll through a hilly area of ranches,
housing tracts and orchards between the town of Goleta and Santa
Barbara, keeping firefighters on their toes.
Temperatures dipped to around 60 degrees during the night, but
were forecast to reach the high 70s later Sunday.
Nearly 1,200 firefighters were assisted by a DC-10 air tanker
and other aircraft dumping water and fire retardant along ridges
and in steep canyons.
Investigators think the fire, which began Tuesday, was
human-caused. The U.S. Forest Service on Saturday asked for public
help in determining hot it was started.
Meanwhile, cooler weather helped crews attacking the
two-week-old blaze that has destroyed 22 homes in Big Sur, at the
northern end of the Los Padres forest, but the fire continued to
grow slowly on all flanks Saturday night.
The fire, which had blackened 111 square miles, was only 5
percent contained with full containment not expected until July 30,
but morning fog that moved in from the sea helped prevent it from
advancing on Big Sur's famed restaurants and hotels.
"We're gaining ground, but we're nowhere near being done,"
said Gregg DeNitto, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.
"There's still a lot of potential out there. The fire has been
less active the last couple of days. We've had favorable weather;
they are taking every opportunity to get some line on it."
The weather was expected to become hotter and drier over the
next couple of days, he said, with wind and temperatures rising and
humidity dropping.
"The fire still has the potential for movement and the
potential to get out of our containment lines," he said.
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Associated Press writers Samantha Young in Sacramento,
Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Lisa Leff in San Francisco and
Amanda Fehd in Berkeley contributed to this report.
