Evacuations

Elevated sulfur dioxide levels from Kilauea volcano and a change in wind direction forced 2,000 people to evacuate Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. The park was closed, and those at campgrounds and the Kilauea Military Camp, as well as the guests and staff at the 42-room Volcano House hotel, were told to leave, Chief Ranger Talmadge Magno said. The Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency also recommended evacuations of five nearby communities. The volcano is venting sulfur dioxide from Halemaumau Crater.

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.

Scorching temperatures continued to stoke wildfires across Southern California on Friday, creating anxious moments in the mountains north and east of Los Angeles where thousands of residents fled flames that skipped through canyons, edging toward one neighborhood after another. More than 2,700 firefighters and a small air force of water-dropping planes and helicopters managed to stop the blazes before they swept into hillside housing tracts. But smoky air from the fires continued to create unhealthful conditions in parts of the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, disrupting schools, horseback riding programs and day camps near the fire areas.

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.

Alexander Gulanerian heard the mob pounding down the hall seconds before his door was broken down and they stormed in, brandishing knives, broken bottles and lengths of pipe. Gulanerian, an Armenian living in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, said the intruders, without uttering a word, began beating him. They slashed his neck and his feet and threw him out of a second-story window.

World chess champion Gary Kasparov says he made a movie-like escape from violence-torn Azerbaijan, spiriting away relatives on a specially chartered plane, according to a news report Friday. "My departure was the stuff movies are made of," Kasparov told the Spanish daily El Pais in a telephone interview after arriving in Moscow on Thursday from his hometown, Baku.

About 15,000 American service personnel, dependents and civilians were ordered early today to evacuate Clark Air Base, one of the largest U.S. bases overseas, after a Philippines volcano dormant for six centuries began exploding with searing gases, thick ash and deadly debris. Lt. Col. Ron Rand, a spokesman at Clark, announced at 5 a.m.

Timothy Abbott would not describe his life as easy. Decent, maybe. He'll go that far. His family settled in this working-class town three generations ago, when his great-grandmother ran away from home at age 15. The Abbotts have found work where they could over the years. Timothy, 27, has a job at a car detailer, making $6.25 an hour. He loves his girlfriend and her 2-year-old daughter, even when the kid gets pizza sauce all over her shirt like she did Friday. They live in a small apartment.

A surprisingly fierce rainstorm overnight and Saturday morning is prompting evacuations in the La Cañada Flintridge burn area, centered at the top of Ocean View Boulevard. Several homes in the area have been damaged by mudslides, cars have been swept down Ocean View in a torrent of debris and mud has flowed nearly a mile to Foothill Boulevard. No injuries have been reported. Fire officials were expected to go door to door warning residents, and they plan to use the reverse 911 warning system to make notifications.

About a dozen residents of Maurice Avenue on the north end of an island of La Crescenta homes known as Briggs Terrace found themselves in the middle of the street late Saturday, taking stock of their situation. They were surrounded by fire on three sides, and there were no firefighters or law enforcement in sight. Someone asked a question that was on everyone's mind: Is anybody leaving? All shook their heads. The evacuation order had come after nightfall for the Briggs Terrace area, a collection of century-old Craftsman and cabin-style homes, along with newer stucco homes.

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.

Los Angeles County authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders Monday night for more than 500 residences in mudslide-prone areas in La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta and Acton. The residences must be evacuated by 10 a.m. Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. Sheriff's deputies were notifying residents Monday night in affected neighborhoods. A complete list of all addresses to be evacuated can be found on the Web page of the County Department of Public Works.

A wind-driven brush fire Tuesday in the Santa Barbara foothills charred at least 420 acres, forced the evacuation of about 1,000 homes and renewed grim memories of the devastating fires that swept through the area last fall. The Jesusita fire started about 1:50 p.m., racing through thick chaparral on the slopes above San Roque Canyon. It was burning about a mile west of November's Tea fire, which destroyed more than 200 homes in Santa Barbara and Montecito.

Brush fires broke out in three Southern California counties Monday, scorching hundreds of acres, forcing the evacuation of several dozen homes and threatening other structures. A blaze near the Pala American Indian reservation in northern San Diego County had burned more than 300 acres. Thirty-five homes were under evacuation orders and 605 firefighters were on the fire line, officials said Monday night. Meanwhile, two other fires in the region were contained as crews worked in triple-digit temperatures to beat back flames.

As massive Hurricane Irene advanced toward the Eastern Seaboard with 115-mph winds, officials issued a hurricane warning for the entire North Carolina coast to the Virginia border, New York ordered low-lying hospitals and nursing homes to evacuate, and at least seven states declared emergencies. If Irene follows its current projected path, it will make landfall along North Carolina's Outer Banks on Saturday. The Category 3 storm withdrew from the Bahamas late Thursday, traveling north at 14 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.