Californian firefighters claim victory over wildfire control

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 03, 2003

Californian firefighters claim victory over wildfire control

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With the help of Mother Nature, which brought rain, snow and fog, firefighters in southern California declared victory late Saturday over controlling raging wildfires that have killed at least 20 people and destroyed nearly 3,400 homes in the past 10 days.

Some of the exhausted firefighters from outside southern California were pulled out and sent home Saturday, while many anxious residents evacuated in the past days were allowed to return to their homes to assess the damage.

"This is the day we didn't believe we would ever see," said Andrea Tuttle, director of the California Department of Forestry. "We don't have any more hot flames anywhere."

The cooler weather that swept across southern California since Thursday with rains, snow and nearly freezing temperatures was credited with the rapid progress made by the firefighters.

Mike McGroarty, deputy chief of fire operation for California's Office of Emergency Services, said the fires have "pretty much slowed and in some cases have stopped." He said the fire crews would begin to go home depending on how far they were from their home base, with Nevada and Northern California teams heading out first.

The massive fire threatening the mountain resort town of Big Bear Lake came to a standstill Saturday, prompting fire officials to let many residents return home.

"It's lying there right now not doing anything," Big Bear City Fire Chief Dana VanLuven said. "The threat is still very real, butwe are confident we can hold it off."

Residents of Big Bear Valley were allowed to return home starting Sunday morning, while residents in the Lake Arrowhead area, roughly 20 miles (32 km) west, had begun returning. But officials advised residents against returning to the Arrowhead area, because rockslides blocked the Highway 18, the only road leading to the resort.

But some fire officials still cautioned against over-optimism. "This kind of weather is not going to put this thing out but it's slowing it down," said Pat Shreffler, a fire official in charge oftracking the fire's movements. "It's looking better, but it's a little soon to be talking about bringing people back up."

Weather forecasters said the heat and dry desert winds that whipped the flames into infernos could return early next week.

Meanwhile, the Cedar Fire, the largest individual blaze in California history, was 65 percent contained after burning six days in the mountains northeast of San Diego.

The threat to the town of Julian near San Diego, known for its vineyards and apple orchards, was over as the blaze was expected to burn east into sparsely populated mountain and desert areas.

In Ventura County, the Simi Valley fire that has destroyed 145 buildings and 107,600 acres (about 42,800 hectares) was more than 70 percent controlled Saturday.

Outgoing California Governor Gray Davis, who met fire evacuees at a disaster relief center in Claremont, east of Los Angeles, with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, said he had asked the federal government to shoulder more than 75 percent cost of disaster emergency relief funds.

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