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YORBA LINDA, Calif. (AP) - Walls of towering flames pushed by Santa Ana winds raged through Southern California hills early Sunday after destroying hundreds of homes and forcing thousands of residents to flee.Evacuees could only watch the wildfires from a distance and wait to learn the fate of their homes and possessions.
"I'm hoping my house will not burn down, but if it burns down that's my life, right? I've got to start from scratch again," said Jack Chen, 56, of Yorba Linda as he sat on a cot in a gym at Katella High School in Anaheim.
Fires burned in Los Angeles County, to the east in Riverside and Orange counties, and to the northwest in Santa Barbara County, blackening a total of 26 square miles and burning more than 800 mobile homes, houses and apartments since Thursday night. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared states of emergency in all three counties.
Forecasts indicated the Santa Ana winds would abate by Sunday afternoon, but humidity levels would remain very low.
The most threatening blaze early Sunday had scorched more than nine square miles in Orange and Riverside counties after erupting Saturday and shooting through subdivisions entwined with wilderness parklands. Containment was just 5 percent.
More than 60 homes burned in the communities of Corona, Yorba Linda and the Anaheim Hills area of Anaheim. In addition, 50 units of one apartment complex burned, Orange County fire spokeswoman Angela Garbiso said.
At one point a firefighter battling the apartment blaze ran down a street with two Pomeranian dogs — one white and one brown — under each arm and placed them in a TV news truck, then dashed back to the fire. The firefighter, who would not give his name, said he rescued the dogs from a burning apartment.
Apartment resident Melody Ma, 24, said she took her sister to piano lessons Saturday morning, when the fire's smoke appeared to be far away, then found she couldn't return home.
"There's things you can't replace like photos and stuff," said Ma, bursting into tears in a shelter.
Evacuee Gail Slagel, 61, said she spent Saturday watching flames in the area around her house from the safety of a Yorba Linda strip mall.
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