Evacuations

Wind-driven wildfires swept across Boulder County grasslands, destroying at least four structures and prompting mandatory evacuations of at least 500 homes, county spokeswoman Barbara Halpin said. Sheriff's Cmdr. Phil West said two firefighters suffered minor injuries. The fires started in parched, rolling grasslands dotted with homes and horse ranches about 25 miles northwest of Denver. West said the fire apparently started when wind knocked down a power line. Authorities said at least three of the destroyed structures were homes, and the fourth was either a barn or a home.

A tractor-trailer carrying a dangerous acid overturned on a highway north of Philadelphia, prompting authorities to order thousands of residents to leave the area for almost nine hours. The tanker, carrying 33,000 pounds of corrosive hydrofluoric acid, a component for household detergents, flipped on a sloping curve in the road at the edge of Wind Gap and began leaking slowly. Hydrofluoric acid in low doses can irritate the eyes, nose and respiratory tract, and in higher doses it can cause severe burns, chronic lung disease or even death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

A sheriff's station in the suburbs of San Diego was evacuated for about two hours after a man took in a bag with seven pipe bombs. Sheriff's spokeswoman Lt. Julie Sutton said the man found the canvas bag in a creek bed. He took it to the station in Santee on Monday afternoon. The station and several surrounding businesses were evacuated until the bomb squad arrived and disabled the explosive devices. Sutton says no one was injured and no arrests have been made.

Officials evacuated tens of thousands of people from low-lying areas as they braced for a second huge storm in eight days. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide "state of calamity" and ordered mass evacuations of six provinces in the path of Typhoon Parma, which was expected to hit the main island of Luzon. Parts of Manila still were awash from the worst floods in 40 years caused by Ketsana, which hit the Philippines as a tropical storm. Nearly 300 people were killed.

Anxious foreigners and Burundians scrambled for tickets on the last scheduled commercial flights out of the sanctions-hit Central African nation. At the Sabena airline office in the capital, Burundian businessmen, Rwandans, Belgians and Western aid workers formed long lines for tickets for two flights to Brussels today.

The rupture of a 6-inch gas main closed National Airport on Friday night, forcing evacuation of the main terminal and control tower and delaying dozens of flights on the eve of a three-day holiday weekend, police and airport officials said. According to a desk officer at the Arlington County Police Department, the airport sought assistance from neighboring police and fire departments at 8:32 p.m. EDT. One woman was overcome by fumes and taken to a hospital, but no other injuries were reported.

When La Soufriere volcano on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe stirred to life in 1976, it started a fractious dispute among French volcanologists over how serious an eruption might occur. The most alarmed scientists prevailed, and the capital of Basse-Terre was evacuated. But after four months away from their homes and no big eruption, the people were allowed to move back. Twenty years later, that big eruption has yet to occur.

The Bosnian capital, splintered by 3 1/2 years of war, took a historic step toward reunification Friday when Bosnian Serb police in this suburb of Sarajevo handed over law enforcement authority to the Muslim-led Bosnian government. But the first peaceful exchange of authority in Sarajevo since Bosnia lurched into civil war in 1992 fell far short of easing tensions between the formerly warring sides.

Hundreds of confused residents, some blinded by tears and others by anger, crowded the town hall here Tuesday in a desperate effort to find a way out of this Sarajevo suburb after Bosnian Serb authorities announced that everyone should leave by Friday.

The scene Wednesday on a snowy road leading out of this Sarajevo suburb presented a timeless snapshot of the Balkan war, a fleeting moment of suffering, helplessness and fear that has been played out countless times in this country. A dented, decades-old station wagon sat limp on the roadside, packed with old flour sacks containing the earthly possessions of the Molevic family. Nebojas Molevic and his father-in-law frantically fiddled beneath the hood, wet snowflakes clinging to their eyebrows.