Calif. Calls Emergency as Wildfires Destroy Homes

(July 28) -- Two raging wildfires have destroyed dozens of homes in California, prompting 2,300 residents to evacuate and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency in one rural county.

More than 16,000 acres have already burned, at least 1,400 of them near the town of Tehachapi in the southern Central Valley's Kern County, which is mostly rural agricultural land and ranches, The Associated Press reported.

As many as 40 homes have been swallowed up by the flames, fueled by dry brush and fierce mountain winds, and another 150 structures are threatened. A camp for juvenile offenders also had to be evacuated, according to the Los Angeles Times. No injuries have been reported.

"I lost it all and some of my animals died," farmer George Plesko told an area newspaper, the Tehachapi News. "Mine's burnt to the ground. ... I watched my house, my barn, my ... trucks burn to the ground. I got out of there."

Today hundreds of firefighters are working on the blazes, backed by engines and bulldozers from several counties. By midday, they had the Tehachapi fire -- also known as the "West" fire -- about 25 percent contained, the AP reported.

The other blaze, dubbed the "Bull" fire, was sparked Monday farther north in Kern County's Sequoia National Forest. Covering about 15,600 acres, it was only about 5 percent contained by midday, according to the AP.

Evacuees spent Tuesday night in an American Red Cross shelter set up in a high school. One of them, Wayne Butchko, described what it felt like to escape from his home, leaving everything behind except his two dogs, Feather and Coco.

"I could feel the heat on my back," Butchko told The Bakersfield Californian. "I could see the flames, and the trees were just popping with explosions."

The cause of both the West fire and the Bull fire are under investigation. About the Bull fire, Michelle Puckett, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, told CNN she's "heard reports that it might be human caused."

Long, dry summers often spark such wildfires in Southern California. But forecasters have warned that two factors -- last winter's rainfall and a developing La Nina -- could result in a worse fire danger than normal this year.

"Wind conditions is one key factor, but also the brush out there," the Kern County Fire Department's Anthony Romero told The Associated Press. "It's really thick, really sparse."

Helicopters and planes are hovering over the flames, dropping water and fire retardant. One evacuee said she was in the midst of fleeing when a helicopter appeared overhead and began dousing her home.

"The helicopters and planes saved our house," Janine Guiffre told the Tehachapi News. "It burned to the corrals at the bottom of our property."

Schwarzenegger's declaration of a state of emergency in Kern County frees up more state resources and funds to fight the fires.

"The circumstances of these wildfires, by reason of their magnitude, are or are likely to be beyond the control of the services, personnel, equipment and facilities of any single county, city and county, or city and require the combined forces of a mutual aid region or regions to combat," the governor said in a statement late Tuesday.

More lightning-sparked fires have burned about 250 acres in the state's northeastern corner, but crews have those blazes about 80 percent contained.