MEYERS
California declared a state of emergency yesterday as firefighters struggled to tackle a forest fire that had destroyed more than 200 buildings in less than a day and forced about 1000 people to flee neighbourhoods near the edge of Lake Tahoe.
The emergency declaration was the first step in requesting emergency federal assistance to fight the fire, which rained ash on the pristine lake and darkened the sky.
"The circumstances of this wildfire, by reason of their magnitude, are beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment and facilities of any single county," said deputy governor John Garamendi, who signed the declaration while governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Europe.
The fire, believed to be caused by human activity, had charred nearly 2500 acres - nearly four square miles - since it started on Sunday afternoon. No injury was reported. The state Office of Emergency Services said 165 houses and 75 outbuildings had been destroyed.
The blaze was less than 10% contained yesterday, said Kevin House of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department.
"This is far and above the biggest disaster that has happened in this community," House said.
The fire spread northward, enveloping hundreds of acres of unpopulated mountainside, and fire officials warned that afternoon wind could turn the flames toward the east and threaten hundreds more homes.
The number of firefighters battling the blaze was nearly doubled yesterday to more than 700. However, air tankers and helicopters were grounded by smoke that cut visibility.
Fire officials said they had two days to get the fire under control because high wind and low humidity are forecast for tomorrow. "We have a window right now where we're really trying to aggressively attack this fire," said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
House said there were no reports of people missing, but "we haven't really been able to get in there and see".-AP
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article