News Update...
Spreading California fires kill 22
AFP - The death toll from wildfires roaring through California rose to 22 as they destroyed more than 3,000 buildings, officials said.
A further two deaths were confirmed as a result of a huge inferno besieging the southern city of San Diego, bringing the total to 22, Larry Benson, spokesman for the fires' southern command centre told AFP.
Some 16 of the deaths occurred around San Diego, four in San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles and two in Mexico after a blaze jumped the border.
One of the dead was a firefighter who was killed Wednesday near San Diego. A further 106 people have been injured by the fires, seven of which are now classified as major blazes.
"The numbers just keep going up," Benson said.
Even as cooler and moister weather moved in Thursday to slow down the 17 fires that are ravaging the populous region, the scale of the fires had scorched nearly 3,000 square kilometres of the state.
Some 14,468 firefighters are battling the blazes which have destroyed 3,179 buildings - including 2,535 houses - as the infernos battered the state for 10th day, Benson said.
But the levels of containment of the major fires rose sharply to between 30 and 70 per cent as cool weather and drizzle moved into some areas.
The biggest fire was a 109,000-hectare Cedar fire burning east of the 1.2-million-strong city of San Diego, which forms part of a sea of flames covering 160,000 hectares in the area.
Another 56,434 hectares were burning near San Bernardino, 80 kilometres east of Los Angeles, where a further 350 homes were destroyed in the ritzy resort town of Lake Arrowhead which was overrun by flames exploding through bone-dry timber.
More than 50,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in San Bernardino, bringing to at least 100,000 the number of residents who have had to flee the flames.
©AAP 2003
