Latest update from the LA Times about 6:00 AM this morning.
Orange and San Diego counties call for more evacuations overnight
By Tony Perry, Garrett Therolf and Mitchell Landsberg
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
5:46 AM PDT, October 23, 2007
Wind-whipped firestorms destroyed more than 700 homes and businesses in Southern California on Monday, the second day of its onslaught, and more than half a million people in San Diego County were told to evacuate their homes.
The gale-force winds turned hillside canyons into giant blowtorches from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Although the worst damage was around San Diego and Lake Arrowhead, dangerous fires also threatened Malibu, parts of Orange and Ventura counties, and the Agua Dulce area near Santa Clarita. New evacuations came overnight in Orange and San Diego counties, as the menacing winds refused to abate.
Late Monday night, new blazes threatened homes near Stevenson Ranch and in Soledad Canyon in northern Los Angeles County. The Soledad Canyon fire burned multiple mobile homes and evacuations were underway, fire officials said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling it "a tragic time for California," declared a state of emergency in seven counties and redeployed California National Guard members from the border to support firefighters. President George W. Bush today declared an emergency, which authorizes federal agencies to coordinate relief.
Schwarzenegger stressed how much California officials have learned since the devastating wildfires of October 2003, which raged over much of the same terrain. But as the day wore on, it became clear that any hard-earned knowledge was no match for natural forces overrunning the ability of firefighters to control them.
