East Fork firefighters battle wildfires

Staff and Wire Reports

An East Fork fire engine and a brush truck along with seven firefighters traveled to Southern California on Monday to fight a fire that has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

East Fork Fire & Paramedic Districts Chief Tod Carlini said the firefighters left Monday as part of two multi-agency strike teams that were requested under a mutual aid agreement between Nevada and California.

Carlini said the firefighters will be facing a once-in-a-career event.

"The magnitude of the fire is beyond comprehension," he said. "This is a fire event that they will probably never exceed or equal in their careers."

The initial commitment for the four volunteer and three career firefighters will be 14 days.

"But that depends on what happens," Carlini said. "A lot of this is weather dependent. The fire behavior, as you observe it on CNN, is just incredible."

Carlini said the firefighters were not assigned to a specific fire but were sent to Chino, Calif., where they would be dispatched where they are needed.

"I know they will be professionals," he said. "We want this to be a roundtrip ticket for them."

Carlini is serving as the coordinator for Northern Nevada this week and was charged with finding firefighters to battle the blaze.

"Usually there isn't that much to do as coordinator, but when you have an event, you have to start calling other agencies," he said. "It took us six hours to put all this together."

Three teams made up of fire fighters from East Fork, Tahoe-Douglas, Carson City, North Lake Tahoe, Sparks, Reno, Central Lyon County, Storey County and the Nevada Division of Forestry responded to the fire.

Northern Nevada sent a strike team of structure engines, one of brush engines and Reno sent a task force of combined engines. Elko and Southern Nevada are combining to send more firefighters.According to the Associated Press, flames consumed hundreds of homes on Tuesday and raised the number of people forced to flee the flames into the hundreds of thousands.

By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned more than 1,200 homes and businesses, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. With forecasts calling for hotter temperatures and fierce wind gusts, the flames were proving nearly impossible to fight.

At least 346,000 homes were ordered to evacuate in San Diego County alone, sheriff's officials said. But the total number could be much higher, and state officials were still struggling to estimate how many people had fled.

Since they began Sunday, the fires have burned at least 245,957 acres, or 384 square miles - an area larger than New York City.

As the fires spread, most out of control, smaller blazes were merging into larger ones. Evacuations were being announced in one community after another as firefighters found themselves overwhelmed by gale-force Santa Ana winds, some gusting to 70 mph.

President Bush declared a federal emergency for seven counties, a move that will speed disaster-relief efforts. But White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was "very premature" to talk on Tuesday about a presidential stop in the region.

Temperatures across Southern California were about 10 degrees above average and were expected to approach 100 degrees Tuesday in Orange and San Diego counties.

Deputies arrested two men for looting in the community of Ramona, and there were a handful of other looting cases reported, said San Diego Sheriff's Lt. Mike McClain.

Thousands of residents sought shelter at fairgrounds, schools and community centers. The largest gathering was at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, where up to 10,000 evacuees anxiously watched the stadium's television sets, hoping for a glimpse of their neighborhood on the local news. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders pleaded for donations of blankets, cots, pillows and food for the people staying there, and officials said more people were expected to arrive Tuesday.

Forty-two people were injured, 16 of them firefighters.

In San Diego County, public schools were closed, as were campuses at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University.

East of Los Angeles, a two-front fire destroyed at least 160 homes in the Lake Arrowhead area, the same mountain resort community where hundreds of homes were lost four years earlier. Officials said at least 100 more homes were destroyed Tuesday in the mountain community of Running Springs, not far away.