California firefighters save ocean-view homes

A helicopter drops water Friday as firefighters battle flames in Southern California's Angeles National Forest. Hundreds of California residents have fled wildfires, which covered 14,000 acres Friday.
A helicopter drops water Friday as firefighters battle flames in Southern California's Angeles National Forest. Hundreds of California residents have fled wildfires, which covered 14,000 acres Friday.

— Firefighters beat back flames licking at oceanview estates Friday, while another wildfire raged through a dry forest above Los Angeles' foothill suburbs. Residents nervously watched aircraft drop loads of water and retardant on nearby blazing slopes.

The dramatic success of an overnight air and ground battle against a swift-moving blaze on the Palos Verdes Peninsula was tempered by the threat from an out-of-control fire on the opposite side of Los Angeles in the steep San Gabriel Mountains above the city of La Canada Flintridge.

The 2.3-square-mile fire in Angeles National Forest was among the most dangerous in a siege of wildfires charring thousands of acres of brush from Southern California north to the central coast region and east to the Sierra Nevada. Triple-digit heat and very low humidity made many areas ripe for burning.

"We're boxed up and ready to go," said La Canada Flintridge resident Steve Buntich, watching helicopters line up to siphon water from a golf course reservoir. He said his wife and children had evacuated to a friend's house for several hours, but had since returned home.

The foothill residents were among more than 1,000 Californians chased from their homes by the threat of wildfires.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula fire roared to life on the south Los Angeles County coast Thursday night and spread rapidly up canyons in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes. As many as 1,500 people fled as hundreds of firefighters rushed to protect homes in the fire's path in adjacent Rolling Hills Estates.

"The fire was stopped right at the backyards of those homes," county Fire Chief Deputy John Tripp said at a morning news conference.

Calm, windless conditions allowed water-dropping helicopters with spotlights to work much of the night. Six homes received minor exterior damage, and the only structures destroyed were an outbuilding and gazebo. No injuries were reported.

After daybreak, no flames were showing and all evacuations were lifted, but Tripp warned that fire could still surge out of the uncontained area.

"We are not out of the woods yet," he said.

Firefighters continued to work the ashen landscape, and a helicopter dropped loads of water sucked from the Pacific Ocean.

Elsewhere in the Angeles National Forest, more than 1,600 firefighters working in 102-degree heat had achieved 60 percent containment of a 3.1-square-mile blaze in a canyon above the city of Azusa. No structures were threatened or damaged

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday in Los Angeles and Monterey counties.

Information for this article was contributed from San Francisco by Sudhin Thanawala, from Fresno by Garance Burke and Tracie Cone and from Los Angeles by Solvej Schou of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 08/29/2009

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