Los Angeles declares wildfire emergency
LOS ANGELES — Smoke filled the sky and ash rained down across Los Angeles on Sunday from a destructive 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. Search-and-rescue crews air-dropped supplies on Saturday as flames prevented the hikers’ escape.
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, and 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 as authorities issued evacuation orders for homes in Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale.
Temperatures were in the mid-to-high 90s, but crews got a break from increased humidity and winds that calmed to less than 5 mph.
“That can change in a moment’s notice, and the winds can accelerate very quickly,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. Ralph Terrazas told reporters Sunday. “There is a lot of fuel out there left to burn.”