California wildfires continue to threaten families, homes
DIAMOND BAR, Calif. — More residents of Southern California were urged to leave their homes Sunday despite calming winds that allowed a major aerial attack on wildfires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and blanketed the area in smoke.
Fires burned in L.A. County, to the east in Riverside and Orange counties and to the northwest in Santa Barbara County. More than 800 houses, mobile homes and apartments were ruined by fires that have burned areas more than 34 square miles since breaking out Thursday.
No deaths have been reported, but police brought in trained dogs Sunday morning to search the rubble of a mobile home park, where nearly 500 homes were destroyed. No bodies had been found by midday.
“This has been a very tough few days for the people of Southern California,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said after touring the damage.
Utah oil drilling project faces environmental opposition
SALT LAKE CITY — Late on Election Day, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a Dec. 19 auction of more than 50,000 acres of oil and gas parcels alongside or within view of Arches National Park and two other redrock national parks in Utah: Dinosaur and Canyonlands.
The National Park Service’s top official in the state calls it “shocking and disturbing” and says that his agency was not properly notified. Environmentalists call it a “fire sale” for the oil industry by a departing administration.
Officials of the land management bureau, which oversees millions of acres of public land in the West, say the sale is nothing unusual but they are “puzzled” that the Park Service is upset.
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