2 posts tagged “red cross”

LOS ANGELES -- Fires raged across California for a fourth day Wednesday as officials said property worth 1 billion dollars had been lost and President George W. Bush declared the region a major disaster zone.

Around 1,700 buildings have been reduced to charred rubble in 18 fires that have erupted since Sunday, forcing an estimated 500,000 people to flee their homes and scorching 172,000 hectares (426,000 acres) of tinder-dry countryside from celebrity-studded Malibu to beyond the Mexican border.

I have been lucky enough to not really be affected by the firestorm. The air is bad and we have to keep all of the windows closed and run the air.  My work is very close to the Hairrs Ranch fire and we have closed early  the last few days do to a real lack  of customers.  My local grocery has run very low on alot of goods do to the evacuation site right  down the street.  We have fire to the north and fire to the south and they almost meet each other  on the far  east end  of San Diego.  I am safe in my house, with my pets, a hot plate of food and a worm bed.  My heart goes out to all that have be hit with hardship and devastation. I pray they have lost no family or pet, but only things that time, family and friend can and will help replace.

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SAN DIEGO – Wildfires fanned by fierce desert winds consumed huge swaths of bone-dry Southern California on Monday, burning buildings and forcing more than 265,000 evacuations from Malibu to San Diego, including a jail, a hospital and nursing homes.

"It was nuclear winter. It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world," Mitch Mendler, a San Diego firefighter, said as he and his crew stopped at a shopping center parking lot to refill their water truck from a hydrant near a restaurant.

    "I lost count," he said when asked how many homes had burned.

At least 13 fires were blazing throughout southern California with thousands of firefighters struggling to contain flames that have ripped through tinder-try hills and parkland following months of record low rainfalls.

One person has been killed, more than 20 people injured and 90,000 acres (36,500 hectares) destroyed in the wind-fueled fires, which forced the evacuation of an estimated 250,000 people in San Diego county alone.
Five helicopters and five air tankers were fighting the Harris fire, along with 45 engines and about 300 firefighters, California Department of Forestry spokeswoman Audrey Hagen said. At the same time, two air tankers and 60 engines with 350 firefighters battled the Witch fire.

Firefighters were already stretched thin by other wildfires burning across Southern California, most notably a Malibu blaze that destroyed a church and several expensive homes.

 These next pic's are that of the smoke that I can see from my house.

Disasters can happen anywhere, at any time and often without warning. From the clothing and shelter given to the displaced family whose home was destroyed in a fire to the food and hydration provided for emergency personnel who spend countless hours on the scene of a disaster, your donations help the American Red Cross fulfill its mission to relieve human suffering by preventing, preparing for and responding to emergencie