Evacuation

Elevated levels of sulfur dioxide pouring from Kilauea volcano forced the evacuation of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for the second time this month. About 2,000 people were forced to leave the park when a lack of wind kept the noxious gas from Halemaumau Crater lingering over the Big Island volcano, park spokeswoman Mardie Lane said.

A search for victims is underway in Virginia Beach, Va., where a Navy jet slammed into a residential area. At least five people reportedly have been taken to a hospital with injuries, including one of two crew members who safely ejected from the aircraft. Dozens of personnel were responding to the crash scene, including 55 emergency workers and 65 police officers, according to Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms. Those forces were being bolstered by state police officers as well as other emergency workers and law enforcement officials from nearby areas.

Scores of diners were evacuated from a restaurant early Sunday after apparently being overcome by pepper spray, fire dispatchers said. One person was taken to a hospital after the 10:15 a.m. incident at Lancers Family Restaurant. Several others complained of stinging eyes and nausea. Fire investigators had not determined the source of the spray Sunday evening. Carmen Cuebas, the restaurant's manager, said it was closed for three hours following the incident.

Colorado fire officials discovered a second fatality Tuesday while fighting a blaze in the mountains southwest of Denver. The body of Sam Lamar Lucas, 77, was found inside a burned home Tuesday, according to a statement by Jefferson County Coroner John M. Graham. The body of Lucas' wife, Linda M. Lucas, 76, was found outside the home Monday evening. It is not yet clear whether or how their deaths were related to the fire. They are being investigated by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, an inquiry that could take weeks, according to the coroner's statement.

Several explosions engulfed a chemical plant in flames, forcing a broad evacuation in Kansas City as the fire spewed a sticky substance that residents were warned not to touch. Two workers at Chemcentral Corp. suffered minor injuries, authorities said. Police drove up and down nearby streets warning that more explosions were expected, but the blaze began subsiding in late evening.

More foreign residents left Tokyo on Thursday, spooked by the grave crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant and heeding foreign governments' calls for their citizens to evacuate northern Japan. Many said they were pressured to leave by worried family members from afar. Some described packing within a matter of hours Thursday and heading to train stations and airports to get farther away from Tokyo. Their destinations were far and wide, with some expatriates returning to Los Angeles, while others headed on vacations to the Pacific islands of Okinawa, 1,000 miles away from Tokyo, or Guam, 1,500 miles away.

A three-inch natural gas line below a construction site in the Glassell Park area was punctured by a construction crew Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of 20 homes, authorities said. The evacuation was ordered as a precaution and residents were allowed back into their homes as soon as crews completed work at the site early in the evening. No injuries were reported. Construction workers using a motorized backhoe punctured the plastic gas line at 3397 Cazador St. about 1:24 p.m., said Denise King, spokeswoman for Southern California Gas Co. Firefighters capped the leak about two hours later.

In the event of a disaster, nurses at Palomar Memorial Hospital now have an emergency apron that will enable them to carry up to six babies at a time, complete with evacuation kits. Tina Mancini, head maternity ward nurse, said the aprons were added because of an increase in Caesarean births, which leave mothers too weak to carry their own babies out of the hospital. "If we had a major disaster, they wouldn't be able to carry their babies, and there are more babies than staff," she said.

Fire engulfed the McKesson Chemical plant Sunday, forcing the evacuation of 2,000 residents. No injuries were reported, police said. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Gasoline leaking from a 10,000-gallon underground tank at a private school in Sherman Oaks Friday forced the evacuation of about 350 students, authorities said. The leak at the Buckley School was reported just before 10 a.m., said City Fire Department spokesman Jim Williamson. The students whose classrooms were located nearest the tank were evacuated to another part of the school about 11 a.m., Williamson said. School was dismissed at 11:30 for the holiday weekend.

Aid agencies were unable to evacuate any people Saturday from a battle-scarred neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs, one day after the United States and other nations demanded that President Bashar Assad allow humanitarian aid into strife-ridden Syria. Among the injured still stranded in Homs' Baba Amr district were a pair of Western journalists, Edith Bouvier of the French daily Le Figaro and Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times of London. Both suffered leg injuries in a shelling attack Wednesday that killed two other Western journalists.

Gordon Hirabayashi, who was convicted for defying the evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast during World War II and, four decades later, not only cleared his name but helped prove that the government had falsified the reasons for the mass incarceration, has died. He was 93. Hirabayashi, who had Alzheimer's disease and other ailments, died Monday in Edmonton, Alberta, where he had lived for many years, said his son, Jay. The elder Hirabayashi was one of only three Japanese Americans who refused to comply with Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in February 1942.

Thousands of students at San Clemente High School were evacuated on the first day of classes Wednesday as authorities searched for explosives they feared a sailor from nearby Camp Pendleton had planted on campus. But the daylong, classroom-by-classroom search turned up nothing. The Navy corpsman surrendered later in the day. Daniel Morgan, 22, became the subject of a manhunt after he failed to turn up for work Wednesday following a four-day leave for the holiday weekend, authorities said.

A wildfire sparked by a deadly plane crash continued to grow Monday, destroying a dozen homes, spurring more evacuations and drawing fire crews from across the Southland. The Canyon fire started Sunday morning when a small plane crashed just south of Tehachapi, killing the two occupants. Burning through chaparral, grass and woodlands in sometimes steep terrain, it had blackened 8,644 acres by Monday night and was 10% contained. More than 1,200 state and county firefighters were battling the blaze with the help of six water-dropping helicopters and seven air tankers.

A small plane crashed near Tehachapi on Sunday, killing one person and igniting a fast-moving brush fire that destroyed a home and triggered evacuations. Kern County Fire Department spokesman Cary Wright said the Cessna 210 crashed in Blackburn Canyon, northeast of Los Angeles. Amid dry, windy conditions, the crash sparked a fire that quickly grew to 150 acres. About 225 firefighters and four aircraft were working to contain the blaze. Authorities did not know how many people were on the plane, but one death was confirmed.

State hospital worker Bruce Schumacher said he was on the verge of retiring and planned to sustain himself with two livestock businesses on his sprawling, 10-acre ranch in the San Bernardino County community of Hesperia. But when he reached his ranch Saturday after a 1,200-acre brush fire roared through his property near the Cajon Pass a day earlier, he met with a ghastly sight. More than 100 of his goats, rabbits and birds were dead, their charred carcasses strewn about his ranch.

Tropical Storm Lee pounded the Gulf Coast on Saturday with heavy rainfall and tidal surges, forcing evacuations of some areas but leaving others, including New Orleans, relatively unscathed — although officials warned that the sloppy, slow-moving storm was capable of causing more trouble. "We're not out of the woods," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a Saturday afternoon news conference. "Don't go to sleep on this storm.... The intensity of it is still there, and the wind and the water can still cause great damage.

Hundreds of firefighters were gaining the upper hand on a Cajon Pass blaze that had mushroomed to more than 1,100 acres Friday night, forcing evacuations, destroying two homes and snarling traffic at the beginning of the long Labor Day weekend. Two firefighters were injured battling the blaze, one apparently suffering heat exhaustion and the other smoke inhalation, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Fred Pena. The so-called Hill fire was substantially contained late Friday night, and officials said that fire conditions were becoming favorable, with easing winds and increasing humidity.