Hundreds Flee Wildfire on Catalina*

Friday May 11, 2007 6:46 PM

By ANDREW GLAZER

Associated Press Writer

AVALON, Calif. (AP) - Firefighters working through the night turned back
flames that threatened Santa Catalina Island's main city and forced
hundreds of people to evacuate amid falling ashes.

The wildfire was 4,000 acres, or more than 6 square miles, and was only
10 percent contained early Friday. But worries were eased by the day's
favorable weather forecast and the arrival of a massive force of fire
trucks and water-dropping aircraft on the narrow, mountainous island 30
miles off Los Angeles.

Flames that had menaced the city the night before were no longer visible
from Avalon on Friday.

A puff of smoke rose from a hillside overlooking the crescent harbor and
a layer of ash were reminders of a harrowing night.

``The risk has been reduced significantly,'' Fire Chief Steven Hoefs
said. ``Most of the structures have been protected.''

The blaze broke out Thursday afternoon, feeding on dry brush and being
fanned by a steady wind into the night.

One home and a few small businesses in the canyons outside the city burned.

About 1,200 homes were under voluntary or mandatory evacuation orders,
and hundreds of residents and tourists lined up at the harbor Thursday
night to board ferries to the mainland. Many covered their faces with
towels and bandanas to ward off ashes.

Resident Kathy Troeger fled with her three children and a friend's
daughter, while her husband, a fire captain, stayed behind to fight the
blaze.

``It was like a nightmare when we left,'' she said after arriving at the
mainland port of Long Beach. ``You couldn't breathe, and ash was falling
like snow.''

Dozens of fire engines arrived through the night from as far away as
Fresno, carried by giant military hovercraft from the Marine Corps' Camp
Pendleton.

Friday's forecast promised better firefighting conditions. Wind that
reached 20 mph Thursday were expected to calm to 10 mph and were blowing
the fire westward, away from Avalon and toward the island's sparsely
populated center.

Despite being well offshore, Catalina has been left parched by the lack
of rainfall that has made the rest of Southern California particularly
susceptible to wildfires like the one in Los Angeles' Griffith Park this
week.

Firefighters were still working Friday to surround what remained of that
fire, which briefly chased people from homes and threatened the park's
landmark observatory and zoo.

Elsewhere around the country, firefighters battled the second Georgia
wildfire to burn more than 100,000 acres as gusty wind spread the
fast-moving blaze further into northern Florida and toward the tiny town
of Fargo west of the Okefenokee Swamp.

Officials said the wildfire, ignited Saturday by lightning, had grown so
rapidly that after six days it already rivaled a fire that has scorched
116,480 acres, or 182 square miles, of southeastern Georgia forest and
swampland since April 16 - the state's largest wildfire on record.

About 570 homes in northern Columbia County, Fla., were evacuated
overnight, and heavy smoke blanketed the area.

In Minnesota, a wildfire that has already destroyed 45 structures
threatened about 200 more structures and closed half of the 57-mile
Gunflint Trail.

The fire has burned about 45 square miles since it started Saturday at a
campsite on remote Ham Lake. No injuries have been reported.

In Maryland, a fast-moving fire, whipped by high winds, consumed a large
warehouse on the Eastern Shore that served as a food processing plant
during both world wars.

---

Associated Press writers Daisy Nguyen and Christina Almeida in Los
Angeles, and Gillian Flaccus in Long Beach contributed to this report.