LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California firefighters on Wednesday continued working to contain the fifth largest fire in the state’s history but warned that some communities are still at risk and could be in greater danger if unpredictable winds whip up again and fan the flames. Warnings of ideal conditions for wildfires were extended because…
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — The fifth-largest wildfire in California history expanded Tuesday, ripping through dry brush atop a coastal ridge while crews struggled to keep flames from roaring down into neighborhoods amid fears of renewed winds. Elsewhere, fire officials announced that a cooking fire at a homeless encampment sparked a blaze…
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Crews aided by calm overnight winds kept a wall of flames from descending from mountains into coastal towns after a huge Southern California wildfire exploded in size over the weekend. Thousands remain under evacuation orders Monday as the fire churns west through foothill areas of Carpinteria and Montecito, Santa Barbara County…
CHRISTOPHER WEBER, Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — A powerful flare-up on the western edge of Southern California’s largest and most destructive wildfire sent residents fleeing Sunday, as wind-fanned flames churned through old-growth brush in canyons and along hillsides toward coastal towns. Crews with help from a fleet water-dropping planes and helicopters saved homes as unpredictable…
FALLBROOK, Calif. (AP) — A week of destructive fires in Southern California is ending but danger still looms. Well into what’s considered the wet season, there’s been nary a drop of rain. That’s good for sun-seeking tourists, but could spell more disaster for a region that emerged this spring from a yearslong drought and now…
By JULIE WATSON and KRYSTA FAURIA, Associated Press FALLBROOK, Calif. (AP) — Firefighters in Southern California were on high alert for dangerous fire potential even before the first blazes broke out. But once flames met ferocious winds, fire crews were mostly powerless to stop infernos that destroyed more than 500 buildings, killed dozens of horses and…
By AMANDA LEE MYERS and JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press BONSALL, Calif. (AP) — A routine day at an elite training center for racehorses transformed into terror and chaos in minutes, with hundreds of thoroughbreds stampeding out of their stalls in a desperate attempt to flee a Southern California wildfire that set their barns ablaze. Turned loose…
By ELLIOT SPAGAT and ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press FALLBROOK, Calif. (AP) — Retirement communities built on golf courses, semi-rural race horse stables and other usually serene sites were engulfed by flames as the San Diego area became the latest front in California’s wildfire fight. The fire broke out Thursday amid dry, hot, windy conditions across the…
By JANIE HAR and MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The wildfires that have devastated California this month caused at least $1 billion in damage to insured property, officials said Thursday, as authorities raised the number of homes and other buildings destroyed to nearly 7,000. Both numbers were expected to rise as crews…
By SUDHIN THANAWALA and BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — The winds eased, some of the smoke began to clear and the forecast Monday offered a tantalizing chance of rain to thousands of firefighters trying to corral the wildfires that have laid waste to the nation’s most celebrated wine-making region. The progress was…