Fires

Fire chiefs in tinder-dry Southern California, faced with lean budgets while more people squeeze into the region, are starting to rethink long-standing policies on ordering mass evacuations in a wildfire, debating whether it may be wiser in some situations to let residents stay and defend their homes. "We don't have enough resources to put an engine at every house in harm's way," said Ventura County Fire Chief Bob Roper.

Big Tujunga Canyon residents and others reeling from the Station fire called Monday for a federal investigation into what they termed a poor initial response to the deadly blaze by the U.S. Forest Service . "It was beyond irresponsibility, beyond neglect," said Cindy Marie Pain, who lost her Big Tujunga Canyon home to the fire, which broke out in the Angeles National Forest on Aug. 26. Pain and other residents said they were outraged by...

The unstoppable Angeles National Forest fire threatened 10,000 homes Saturday night as it more than tripled in size and chewed through a rapidly widening swath of the Crescenta Valley, where flames closed in on backyards and at least 1,000 homes were ordered evacuated. Sending an ominous plume of smoke above the Los Angeles Basin, the fire was fueled by unrelenting hot weather and dense brush that has not burned in 60 years. It took off Saturday afternoon in all directions, forcing residents out of homes from Big Tujunga Canyon to Pasadena, and reached toward Mt. Wilson.

The grief-numbed parents of Hermosillo buried their babies and waited for answers. When none came, they marched. When they got desperate, they traveled the thousand miles to Mexico City and marched some more. They carried banners with photos of their children -- 48 in all -- killed when fire tore through a crowded day-care center named ABC. More than a month after the June 5 blaze in the northern state of Sonora, satisfying answers are in short supply.

Warm winds whipped up clouds of embers today that threaten to spread southern Australia's wildfires into more towns, as dozens more dead were found in the smoldering ashes of earlier blazes. At least 173 people have been confirmed dead, and with search teams recovering more charred corpses in fire-scorched areas, police warned that the final death toll in what is already the country's worst fire disaster could reach 300.

As the Jesusita fire raged around Santa Barbara this week, Mitchell Sjerven decided to temporarily close his Seagrass restaurant near the normally bustling State Street. The move to shutter the elegant "coastal cuisine" spot, where a "surf-and-turf" entree costs $48, could cost thousands of dollars.

The head of California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health said Monday he will personally oversee a "rigorous and effective" criminal investigation into the Dec. 29 chemistry lab fire that killed a UCLA staff research assistant. Cal/OSHA Chief Len Welsh's pledge came after a civil probe last month resulted in one regulatory and three "serious" violations, and fines totaling $31,875. The family of the research assistant, Sheri Sangji, had criticized the review as inadequate.

A father and son were treated for smoke inhalation from an early morning house fire in Covina on New Year's Day, according to Los Angeles County Fire Department officials. The fire occurred at a home on Cameron Avenue near Grand Avenue. The blaze, which was started by embers from the fireplace, began at 1:20 a.m. and was put out about 50 minutes later, fire officials said. The blaze caused about $30,000 damage to the $1.6-million house.

If meteorologists are right, the storm of the year may be on its way to Steven Hand's backwoods patch of eastern Orange County, potentially transforming the steep, charred slopes encircling his family home into fast-moving rivers of mud and rocks. He knows all this, but on Thursday he just shrugged. "You can't stop a mudslide," said Steven, 16, who has lived on his family's isolated 14-acre plot in Modjeska Canyon his whole life.

An oil refinery near Iraq's southern port city of Basra probably will remain shut for days after a large fire Tuesday that highlighted the vulnerability of the country's energy infrastructure to criminal and political power struggles. Five men suffered severe burns, and the sky was clotted with thick smoke until the two-hour fire was extinguished. The refinery provides petroleum products to consumers in southern Iraq. "There was severe damage to the refinery," said Basra Gov.