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Show V" '- - mpiis Fires sweep across Southern California Staff writer witnesses damage over fall break as 500,000 evacuate San Diego County Emily Bennion StaffWriter Southern California is burning. From Santa Barbara County to the Mexican border, at least 18 separate wildfires have burned more than 400,500 acres, destroyed thousands of homes and displaced nearly a million people. Early estimates place the damage at almost $1 billion. California is no stranger to natural disasters. Wildfires are a yearly occurrence, and with the record-breakidrought that plagued the western United States this summer, residents were prepared for at least a few large brush fires, but nothing to this scale. Like several others here at Westminster, I call the countrys most populous state my home. And, like many other Westminster students, I went back for the long weekend after midterms. For the first couple of days that I was down there, the weather in my hometown of Santa Monica was er cool and foggy in the typical for mornings, and warm and sunny in the afternoon. Then, on Oct. 20, the winds changed. Santa Ana winds are a phenomenon unique to Southre ern California. When a ridge hovers over like the one that brought rain and the Great Basin snow to Salt Lake City that weekend high pressure ng mid-Octob- low-pressu- hits Southern California and creates a strong offshore flow. Hot, dry winds whip up from the northeast, sometimes with hurricane force. That evening, the winds tore pine tree by its roots and threw it onto my up a neighbors house, ripping a large hole in its roof. The winds also knocked over an electrical pole in Malibu. Sparks from the downed line began the first of several enormous, wind-whippwildfires, fueled by tinder-dry acres of brush left by a year of drought. By the time I flew out of the Los Angeles International Airport on the evening of Oct. 21, 1 could count four separate blazes from the air. For a moment, before the plane rose above the clouds of thick, black smoke from the Malibu fire, the cabin smelled like soot. By the next day, one person had died, nearly 50 were injured, hundreds of homes had burned and 500,000 people from San Diego County alone had been evacuated from the fires paths. Already, comparisons were being made to the catastrophic Old and Cedar Fires, which had burned hundreds of thousands of acres and killed 22 people almost exactly four years before. Before the current wildfires, the 2003 fires were considered the most destructive in the states history. It is still too early to tell whether or not these fires have surpassed them in terms of acreage burned and property lost. In Los Angeles County, the combined smoke from the 70-fo- ot ed I f I t I VOLUME XU: ISSUE 8 6 5 i r nearby Canyon (Malibu), Magic and Castaic Fires collected in the L.A. Basin, making the air painful to breathe. Theres smoke everywhere, said Derainna Wai, a student at California State University, Los Angeles. The air is just full of ashes, and it isnt hot outside because of the sun its from the fires. The smoke and ash in the air is so bad that even being inside a building without air conditioning is better than being outside; its cooler and the airs cleaner. Others I spoke with were much closer to the flames. Allison Pillatsch, a friend of mine since the third grade, lives in Calabasas, but drove up and over the Santa Monica Mountains to take pictures. We could see the fire from Rambla Pacifico Street and Schueren Road in Malibu on Sunday ... it was evacuated late Monday afternoon. That scene repeated itself throughout the region. Rancho Bernardo in San Diego County was particularly hard-h- it by the Witch Fire, which burned several homes. Ramundo was one of those evacuated. At 4 a.m., my sister came into my room and said I had five minutes to pack what I didnt want burned up. She packed photo albums, a weeks worth of clothing, a home movie and several other items of sentimental value. She got her suitcases ready in less than five minutes only to find her Continued on page 12 Sil-va- na |