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More people flee deadly California wildfire

27 Oct 2006 16:37:52 GMT
Source: Reuters

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Firefighters man the scene along Highland Springs Rd. as they battle a massive brush fire in the hills of Beaumont, California, October 26, 2006. REUTER/Gene Blevins (UNITED STATES)
REUTERS/GENE BLEVINS

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES, Oct 27 (Reuters) - A deadly wildfire in rugged mountains near Palm Springs burned out of control for a second day on Friday, forcing more people to flee their homes to escape a 15-mile (24-km) wall of flames.

The fire, blamed on arsonists, has roared through 24,000 acres (9,700 hectares), killing four firefighters and leaving another badly burned and in critical condition.

Knocking on doors and using bullhorns, firefighters roused several hundred people in the middle of the night and told them to leave as the fire neared their houses, fire officials said.

They joined another 700 who left hurriedly, leaving belongings and even some pets behind after the fire broke out on Thursday.

Another 400 to 1,000 people spent a tense night trapped in a recreational vehicle park in the San Jacinto mountains because firefighters were unable to get them out.

More than 1,000 firefighters worked through the night despite an acrid blanket of thick smoke covering the fire zone, 90 miles (145 km) east of Los Angeles and 17 miles (27 km) northwest of Palm Springs.

Weather forecasters expected another day of gusting, hot Santa Ana winds throughout southern California. In Orange County, 140 people were evacuated at daybreak from a campground in the Cleveland National Forest after a small brush fire broke out there.

Riverside County fire officials said the blaze near Palm Springs was deliberately set and a $100,000 reward has been offered for information about the perpetrators.

They gave no details about why they consider it an arson fire. The Los Angeles Times on Friday quoted people as saying they had seen teenagers smoking marijuana around midnight Thursday near where the fire is thought to have started.

The blaze was the deadliest for the firefighting community since 2001, when four firefighters were killed in Washington state.

But it has yet to wreak the destruction of October 2003, when wildfires burned for days in mountains outside Los Angeles and near San Diego, killing 24 people, destroying more than 3,000 homes and burning some 740,000 acres.

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Last updated:Fri Oct 27 16:40:06 2006