Californians flee fires

Wildfires are raging across the southern half of California for the fourth day after driving a half million people from their homes

What happened

Wildfires are raging across the southern half of California for the fourth day after driving a half million people from their homes—the largest evacuations on record in the state. At least 1,000 homes have been destroyed, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office estimated that economic losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Orange County Fire Chief Chip Prather said a lack of resources put firefighters’ lives at risk. “It is an absolute fact,” he said, “Had we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire.”

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