Wildfires forced thousands to flee their homes across the US West during a sweltering, smoke-shrouded holiday weekend of record heat.
The fires yesterday caused evacuations in Glacier National Park in Montana and many other parts of the West; compelled crews to rescue about 140 hikers who had spent the night in the woods after fire broke out along the popular Columbia River Gorge Trail in Oregon; and led firefighters to step up efforts to protect a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoia encroached by flames near Yosemite National Park in California.
A sudden gusty series of rainstorms allowed Los Angeles, however, to cancel evacuation orders for a wildfire that the mayor called the largest in the city's history and sent beach umbrellas and toy shovels bouncing down Southern California beaches late yesterday.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had declared a local emergency earlier yesterday and Gov Jerry Brown did the same on the state level for Los Angeles County after the wildfire destroyed three homes and threatened hillside neighborhoods.
More than a thousand firefighters battled flames that chewed through more than 23 kilometers of brush-covered mountains.
By evening, however, the day's record heat in Los Angeles had eased and a spate of brief storms even brought a bit of rain to the burning slopes, slowing the progress of the wildfire. Authorities were able to cancel the evacuation orders that had been issued for three cities Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale and allow all of the 1,400 people who had fled to return to their homes.
Conditions slowing the blaze could change again "in a moment's notice, and the winds can accelerate very quickly," Los Angeles Fire Capt. Ralph Terrazas warned, however. "There is a lot of fuel out there left to burn."
Officials were keeping an eye on thunderstorms, which were bringing welcome bursts of rain but also the risk of flash floods, mudslides and lightning. Beachgoers in Santa Barbara filmed one sudden storm there that sent palm trees flapping and toddlers chasing beach toys that the wind was blowing down the beach.
The high at Los Angeles International Airport reached 36 degrees Celsius yesterday, topping the previous mark of 33 Celsius, set in 1982. Records were also set in parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where the temperature hit 38 Celsius.
San Francisco residents, meanwhile, stifled under a third day of a rare heat wave in the coastal city, although highs in the San Francisco Bay Area fell yesterday from records in the high 30s Celsius set the previous two days.
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