FIREFIGHTERS MAKING PROGRESS AGAINST CALIFORNIA FIRES
FIREFIGHTERS ACROSS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HAVE MADE PROGRESS BATTLING SCATTERED WILDFIRES THAT HAVE KILLED AT LEAST ONE PERSON.
They have also destroyed hundreds of buildings and forced more than 200,000 people from their homes this week.
As the dry Santa Ana winds that have fueled the blazes abated slightly, officials lifted evacuation orders for parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and crews started getting the upper hand in containing some major fires.
But with the National Weather Service expecting a pickup in top wind velocity to 55 miles per hour (89 km per hour) on Sunday from 40 miles per hour (64 km per hour), the 8,700 firefighters battling six fast-moving blazes were under pressure to work quickly.
“We’re far from being out of the woods on any of them,” Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), told a news briefing in Ventura.
At an evacuation shelter at the Ventura County Fairgrounds on Saturday, fluorescent lights shone above hundreds of cots set up in rows. Outside, dust and soot made it hard to breathe.
Published: by Radio NewsHub