Western Update-Arizona & California incidents

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Wildfires raced through a national forest in Arizona and a
desert community in Southern California on Wednesday, burning
several homes and threatening hundreds more in an outbreak fueled
by gusting winds and scorching temperatures.
A 4,500-acre grass fire in California raced through the Mojave
Desert about 100 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, an area that
includes about 2,000 ranches and homes, said Dave Dowling, a
spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
Although the flames had threatened as many as 700 homes at one
point, only seven had burned and about two dozen remained in danger
by late afternoon, said California Department of Forestry spokesman
Bill Peters. A second fire, about 35 miles away, burned more than
2,000 acres but was not threatening any structures, authorities
said.
Julie Brunette said she and her husband lost the trailer they
had bought just last year. "We pretty much lost everything," she
said. "Most everything we had wasn't very valuable, but it was
memory stuff, pictures of our grandkids."
With flames just a few blocks from her home, Syble Breihan said
she packed her car with important documents, photographs, her two
dogs and her Jimmy Buffett recordings so she would be ready to flee
at a moment's notice.
"I can stand in my back yard and see the flames," she said as
she watered down the roof of her home. "I can smell the smoke.
It's thick."
A handful of evacuees wound up at a community center in the high
desert town of Yucca Valley. One of them, Janet Parades, said she
awoke from a nap to find flames just 150 yards from her small ranch
house.
"As I looked out the window, I saw billows of smoke, flashes of
flame. It was roaring, just awful," she said.
In Arizona, two lightning-caused brush fires forced the
evacuation of at least 250 homes from a subdivision in the Tonto
National Forest about 20 miles northeast of Phoenix. No injuries
were reported, but television footage showed at least one structure
on fire.
The blazes grew to 12,500 acres during the afternoon and moved
close to merging, although forest officials were unable to
determine the exact acreage because of heavy smoke blanketing the
sky.
Nelse Pintel said that as he abandoned his house with his
paperwork and cats, he saw flames coming into the canyon where he
lives.
"When you live in a situation like this, you just know that it
could happen anytime," he said. "When it does, you just grab what
you can and you go and you hope."
Another evacuee, Bill Victor, watched from a road Wednesday
evening as aircraft dropped flame-retardant slurry on the ridge
behind his home.
"It's something to see the flames come over and shocking to
realize that you could lose everything," Victor said. "It's a
feeling everyone should have in their lives once to get their
priorities straight."
In Nevada, firefighters took advantage of calm winds to tame a
fire that burned 750 acres near Carson City and sent up a plume of
swirling smoke visible 30 miles to the north. No homes were
threatened and no injuries were reported.

APTV 06-23-05 0233EDT

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Homes destroyed in first major Western fires
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - At least six homes were
burned down and hundreds of people evacuated in California and
Arizona in the first major blazes of the wildfire season in the
two Western states, authorities said Thursday.
In Arizona, firefighters battled an out of control blaze
triggered by a lightning strike that has blackened 30,000 acres
of grass and brush northeast of Phoenix. Ten buildings, some of
them homes, were destroyed and about 250 homes were evacuated,
fire officials said.
"Flash fires like this can get big, but they tend to go out
and get cold quickly," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dave
Killebrew said. "We're not at this point yet. It is still
actively burning."
Near the desert town of Palm Springs, California, six homes
were destroyed in a brush fire that forced hundreds of people
to flee, closed a highway overnight, and at one time threatened
up to 700 homes.
Most of the fire was concentrated in the Big Morongo Canyon
Preserve, about 15 miles north of Palm Springs, but part of it
moved into a corner of Joshua Tree National Park.
Firefighters said the Morongo blaze was only 30 percent
contained Thursday and that efforts to control it were
hampered by hot, windy conditions and flames leaping up to 80
feet in the air. The cause of the blaze was unknown.
Despite heavy winter rains, forecasters have said they
expect a normal fire season this summer.
In 2003, fires across Southern California burned nearly
750,000 acres and destroyed more than 3,500 homes, the most
destructive conflagration in over a century with damages of
over $3 billion.
Hardened locals have long joked that the often-sunny region
has two real seasons, flood and fire.
California, the nation's most populous state, has gained
about 10 million residents in the past two decades. Much of the
growth has been in inland areas, which are hotter and drier and
face a greater risk of fire than coastal areas.
REUTERS