Suspected California arsonist shot dead
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Suspected California arsonist shot dead*
By Peter Mitchell in Los Angeles
October 25, 2007 03:25pm
Article from: AAP
US authorities have shot dead a suspected arsonist as wildfires continue
to burn across southern California.
Residents are holding their breath for a favourable weather change.
More than 9000 weary firefighters are still battling 15 fires still
burning out of control after four days of blistering heat, low humidity
and winds in excess of 100km/h.
Arson is being blamed for many of the fires.
Authorities, including teams of FBI agents and helicopters using
infrared cameras, have been scanning bushland for suspected arsonists,
with police arresting one suspect and shooting another dead.
Police said the shooting took place last night when when San Bernardino
University police spotted a man in a rural area near the campus.
University police chased after the man, a 27-year-old from Arizona, but
he jumped into a car and fled.
Police chased him and he began ramming their car so they fired at him,
killing him.
US fire officials desperately hope the strong winds, high temperatures
and low humidity that created a perfect storm fire scenario changes
tomorrow, when a high pressure system generating the winds moves east.
US President George W Bush today declared it a "major disaster," which
will open up additional federal assistance.
At least three people have been killed across California. Early
estimates have put the damage bill at more than $US1 billion ($1.1
billion), but that is expected to rise.
Around 1800 buildings have been destroyed, forcing an estimated 500,000
people to flee their homes and scorching 172,000ha of tinder-dry
countryside stretching from celebrity-studded Malibu to beyond the
Mexican border.
The worst-hit areas are south of Los Angeles, around San Diego and
Orange County, where the Australian Government estimates 10,000
Australians live or are holidaying.
Australian consular officials have spent the past three days checking
the 21 emergency shelters in the region for Australians evacuated by the
fires and so far the news is good.
"At this stage we don't have any information of any Australians being
injured or sustaining major or catastrophic property damage," Australian
Consul-General in Los Angeles Innes Willox said.
Elsewhere in southern California, other Australians, including champion
ice skater Anthony Liu, were preparing to flee their homes.
Liu, a two-time member of the Australian Olympic team, had packed his
most valuable possessions in his car and was awaiting word from local
authorities whether to abandon his home and his Ice Castle ice skating
training facility.
The facility is in the scenic village of Lake Arrowhead in the San
Bernadino Mountains outside Los Angeles.
"We've packed up everything," Liu, 33, said.
"It's in the car and we're ready to go if the sheriff's tell us to go."
Another well-known Australian, actor Costas Mandylor, injured his back
while attempting to save a friend's home on Monday in Malibu.
His friend's home was partially damaged by the fire.
"There's two sides to his house and one side got burnt," said Mandylor,
who starred in the TV series Picket Fences, Oliver Stone's The Doors and
is the male lead in this Halloween's expected box office dominator, Saw IV.