Chattanooga Times Free Press

Wildfires across West force thousands to flee their homes

- BY CHRISTOPHE­R WEBER AND ELLEN KNICKMEYER

LOS ANGELES — Wildfires forced thousands to flee their homes across the U.S. West during a sweltering, smoke-shrouded holiday weekend of record heat.

The fires Sunday caused evacuation­s in Glacier National Park in Montana and many other parts of the West; compelled crews to rescue about 140 hikers who had spent the night in the woods after fire broke out along the popular Columbia River Gorge Trail in Oregon; and led firefighte­rs to step up efforts to protect a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoia encroached by flames near Yosemite National Park in California.

A sudden gusty series of rainstorms allowed Los Angeles, however, to cancel evacuation orders for a wildfire that the mayor called the largest in the city’s history and sent beach umbrellas and toy shovels bouncing down Southern California beaches late Sunday.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had declared a local emergency earlier Sunday and Gov. Jerry Brown did the same on the state level for Los Angeles 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.

By evening, however, the day’s record heat in Los Angeles had eased and a spate of brief storms even brought a bit of rain to the burning slopes, slowing the progress of the wildfire. Authoritie­s were able to cancel the evacuation orders issued for three cities — Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale — and allow all of the 1,400 people who had fled to return to their homes.

Conditions slowing the blaze could change again “in a moment’s notice, and the winds can accelerate very quickly,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. Ralph Terrazas warned, however. “There is a lot of fuel out there left to burn.”

Officials were keeping an eye on thundersto­rms, which were bringing welcome bursts of rain but also the risk of flash floods, mudslides and lightning. Beachgoers in Santa Barbara filmed one sudden storm there that sent palm trees flapping and toddlers chasing beach toys that the wind was blowing down the beach.

The high at Los Angeles Internatio­nal Airport reached 97 degrees Fahrenheit Sunday, topping the previous mark of 92, set in 1982. Records were also set in parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where the temperatur­e hit 101 degrees.

San Francisco residents, meanwhile, stifled under a third day of a rare heat wave in the coastal city, although highs in the San Francisco Bay Area fell Sunday from records in the 100s Fahrenheit set the previous two days.

Fires burning up and down the Sierra Nevada and further to the northwest cast an eerie yellow and gray haze over much of California. Much of the state was under alerts because of poor air quality.

California authoritie­s ordered evacuation­s for a third small town Sunday in one of the wildfires, a blaze that has burned 9-square-miles near Yosemite.

 ?? THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Standing where his home used to be, Craig Bolleson hugs a friend Monday in the SunlandTuj­unga section of Los Angeles.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Standing where his home used to be, Craig Bolleson hugs a friend Monday in the SunlandTuj­unga section of Los Angeles.

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