No Relief As High Winds Fuel Wildfires
(CBS/AP) Thousands more residents were ordered to evacuate their homes Tuesday, bringing the number of people chased away by the wind-whipped flames that have engulfed Southern California to at least 300,000.
As flames continued to light up the sky, most of these evacuees have no choice but to wait out what may be the worst fire in San Diego’s history, reports CBS News correspondent Hattie Kauffman.
By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned 1,200 homes and businesses and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. Tuesday’s forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive Santa Ana gusts.
A vast curtain of smoke was dropped crosswise from the mountains all the way to the Pacific shore, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds.
The blazes bedeviled firefighters as walls of flame whipped from mountain passes to the edges of the state’s celebrated coastline, spreading so quickly that even hotels serving as temporary shelters for evacuees had to be evacuated.
“I mean, it’s like freaking Armageddon around here,” a resident told The Early Show. “I mean, it’s black, there’s smoke everywhere, the flames came right to the back of some of the houses.”
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