Firefighters Make Progress in California as Winds Die Down
Devastation massive: 800 homes destroyed and 26,000 residents still displaced.
Nov. 17, 2008 — -- Fierce Santa Ana winds continued to subside overnight, allowing firefighters to make some progress in containing the turbocharged fires that forced thousands of Southern Californians to flee their homes.
Three separate fires from Orange County to Santa Barbara have destroyed more than 800 houses, mobile homes and apartments since Thursday night. In all, the fires have consumed more than 35,000 acres, often at incredible speed, thanks to 50- to 70-mile per hour winds.
Nearly 50,000 people have been evacuated from the fire areas since Thursday, but about half of those people were allowed to return to their homes. That leaves close to 25,000 people still homeless or displaced.
More than 500 homes were destroyed in one trailer park, where many elderly people lived. Most were taken to a Red Cross shelter.
Ruth Kemke, 84, barely made it out of her mobile home and lost many of her prized possessions. Kemke packed everything she could into her 1973 Camaro, but with the power out, she couldn't get her garage door open.
"I had watched all the houses [burn] down, because the winds at that point were 70 miles an-hour, and it was like a blowtorch furnace,"Kemke told "Good Morning America."
Firefighters rescued Kemke and her car, allowing Kemke to take some of her momentos, including her wedding album and husband's ashes.
The fire began Thursday in the exclusive enclave of Montecito, where celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael Douglas and Jeff Bridges own homes. While their estates escaped the blaze, actor Christopher Lloyd's $11 million home was devoured.
The "Back to the Future" and "Taxi" star walked through the wreckage and ash of his former home, shocked by the damage.
"You watch TV, you see these kinds of incidents happening here and there, but you look with a kind of detachment because it's happening ... elsewhere, but suddenly to be in the midst of it, it's a very different awareness," Lloyd said.
Battling the flames across four counties has been a massive undertaking for the more than 3,500 firefighters and other rescue workers who have faced heat so intense it melted fire hoses.
