Santa Ana consequences. by Barbie Kunkelova

California wildfires of 2007 â€" a series of wildfires, or uncontrolled destructive fires, started on Saturday, October 20. Main causes are: lightning, human carelessness (after camping, for example), arson, volcano eruption and the heat waves spreading from it. According to Wikipedia, the deadliest wildfires known in our history were the ones of summer 2007 in Greece. 64 people died and over 438,000 acres of land and forests were destroyed. In California, four times more people than by the Katrina hurricane (of 2005) had to be evacuated. So far, around 1,500 homes have burned to ashes along with 270,000 acres of land. The governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency and said they can only hope for the winds to slow down. The Santa Ana winds are characteristic for being warm and dry, not too fast. Ron Roberts said for The New York times: “This is a major emergency, the speed with which these fires are moving, because of the wind, they are probably unlike anything we’ve seen before.” But winds aren’t the only spark for these wildfires; there is also the drought and the hot weather. However, the causes of two of the fires seem to be the arson and a crashed semi-truck, the other causes are still under investigation (there is a $150,000 reward on any piece of information which would lead to conviction). By Wednesday, the winds slowed down and made the task a little easier for the firefighters. Still, around 9,000 people were helping to stop the fires. The estimated losses caused by these fires so far are between $900,000 and $1.6 billion, according to Yahoo! News. And what’s worse, the danger is not completely over yet.

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071025/tts-uk-california-wildfire-d1d4700_6.html

by Barbie Kunkelova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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