Thousands Urged To Flee California Fires

SAN DIEGO — Wildfires blown by fierce desert winds yesterday reduced scores of Southern California homes to ashes, forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee, and laid a hellish, spidery pattern of luminous orange over the drought-stricken region.

At least one person was killed in the fires, and dozens were injured.

Nearly 130 homes had burned in one mountain town alone, and thousands more buildings were threatened by more than a dozen blazes covering at least 310 square miles.

"The sky was just red. Everywhere I looked was red, glowing. Law enforcement came barreling in with police cars with loudspeakers telling everyone to get out now," Ronnie Leigh, 55, who fled her home at a mobile home park as flames darkened the sky over the nearby ridge line, said. Firefighters — who lost valuable time trying to persuade stubborn homeowners to leave — were almost completely overwhelmed as gale-force winds gusting to 70 mph scattered embers on the dry brush. California officials pleaded for help from fire departments in other states. A pair of wildfires consumed 128 homes in the mountain resort community of Lake Arrowhead, in the San Bernardino National Forest east of Los Angeles, authorities said.