Firefighters making steady progress
LOS ANGELES – Under cool, moist skies, firefighters on Saturday made significant strides against the remaining fires in Southern California. Displaced residents streamed back to their homes, and hard-hit San Diegans prepared to cheer on their Chargers in a football stadium that just days before had been an emergency shelter for thousands.
Even as something approaching normalcy returned to many areas, firefighters worked feverishly to take advantage of the comparatively low temperatures and light breezes. Some forecasters were predicting that the fire-triggering blasts of the Santa Ana winds would return, although perhaps not as severely, at week’s end.
In all, 1,792 houses had been listed as destroyed by Saturday night – 17 over the previous day as officials continued to assess damages.
At the 27,521-acre Santiago fire – a cliffhanger that was still threatening dozens of homes in Orange County’s Silverado Canyon – a sprinkle of rain raised the hopes of weary firefighters and frustrated residents.
“The threat is diminishing day by day,” said county Fire Authority Battalion Chief Pat Antrim, himself a resident of the canyon for 46 years. “We’re getting a little drizzle, which is better than hot wind.”
By evening, firefighters said they had made steady progress, but Orange County’s rustic canyon communities remained under mandatory evacuation.
“The weather today has been outstanding,” said Dennis Cross, a spokesman for the county Fire Authority. “High humidity and very little wind is allowing aircraft to really target and hit a lot of hot spots.”
Forecasters said the winds would change direction today, bringing slightly drier, warmer weather to the fire regions in Orange and San Diego counties. More moist air is to return on Tuesday.
Nearly 2,000 firefighters were battling the Santiago fire, assisted by four planes and 16 helicopters. At least 16 homes there have been destroyed in the arson-triggered blaze.
In San Diego, 19,000 residents remained under evacuation orders, but local political and tourism leaders lost no time pitching the city’s charms to prospective visitors. “We want the message to go out across the world: San Diego is open for business,” Mayor Jerry Sanders said at a morning news conference at the San Diego Zoo.
Officials warned residents of the thefts, scams and price gouging that seem to trail every disaster.
San Diego County sheriff’s Lt. Phil Brust said six people have been arrested for looting in the last week, with 128 reports fielded by his office.
Playing for bigger stakes, an out-of-town company snapped up 50 apartments in the Rancho Bernardo area and tripled the rent, the mayor said. Alerted by an evacuee, city officials pressured the company to offer the apartments at the pre-fire rent.
Fly-by-night contractors were given a stern warning by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who showed up with other state officials for a morning briefing at the fire command center in Irvine Regional Park.
“If anyone tries to exploit this tragedy, I will make sure you will pay for it for the rest of your life,” the governor said, also vowing that investigators will arrest those responsible for igniting two blazes – including the destructive Santiago fire – and perhaps another two in the string of fires that have scourged the region. “We will hunt down the people responsible for that,” Schwarzenegger said. “We will not fail.”
So far, more than 1,000 tips on the Santiago fire have poured in to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, where deputies want to question the driver of a white Ford F-150 that was seen leaving the area where it began.
San Diego fire investigators appealed to the public for information about a 44-year-old Los Angeles man who is in custody for allegedly impersonating a firefighter at the Rice fire in Fallbrook, where his truck was loaded with firefighting gear. They said William Reed Brock, who was on probation for a drug offense, was not a suspect in the fires.
Throughout Southern California, bad air was a big concern Saturday. Numerous high school and college athletic events were canceled, and officials urged people not to overdo it.
However, Camp Pendleton reopened fitness facilities for its Marines, and a spokesman for the NFL players’ union said “we feel very confident” that the air won’t endanger players in today’s matchup between the Chargers and the Houston Texans.
In San Diego County, officials opened five assistance centers providing sandbags and seeds – tools to keep burned hillsides from sliding in rains to come.