Wildfires surge amid scorching heat

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

Smoke filled the sky and ash rained down across Los Angeles on Sunday from a wildfire that the mayor said was the largest in city history – one of several blazes that sent thousands fleeing homes across the U.S. West during a blistering holiday weekend heat wave.

In Oregon, crews rescued about 140 hikers forced to spend the night in the woods after fire broke out along the popular Columbia River Gorge Trail. Wildfires also burned in a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoia trees near Yosemite National Park, forced evacuations in Glacier National Park and drove people from homes in parts of the West struggling with blazing temperatures.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti declared a local emergency. At the state level, Gov. Jerry Brown did the same for the county after the wildfire destroyed three homes and threatened hillside neighborhoods. More than a thousand firefighters battled flames that chewed through more than 9 square miles of brush-covered mountains.

Authorities eased evacuation orders for Burbank and Glendale later Sunday and were considering doing the same for Los Angeles, however, as easing temperatures and a bit of rain helped the 1,000 firefighters slow the flames’ progress.

All but 10 percent of the 1,400 people ordered out of their homes in that fire had returned, Garcetti said.

“That can change in a moment’s notice, and the winds can accelerate very quickly,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. Ralph Terrazas cautioned. “There is a lot of fuel out there left to burn.”