California firefighters expect heatwave by Zuzana Zelenakova

It is hard to say whether the situation concerning numerous wildfires in California is getting better or not. However, there are some bad news for exhausted firefighters. According to the forecast a heatwave is to come to California on Wednesday, which means drier and hotter conditions. Temperatures are expected to rise to 32-37 Celsius. Currently around 19,000 firefighters are facing approximately 330 active fires across the state, which because of its usually dry weather is predetermined to this sort of disaster almost every year. The wildfires appeared unusually soon this year on June 20, otherwise they tend to peak in July and August. Although the cooler weather and light winds in recent days helped firefighters a bit and they were able to make some significant inroads. There was a progress reported in their fight against two biggest fires, one near Santa Barbara, 165 km north of Los Angeles, and the other in the vicinity of Big Sur. Santa Barbara fire, that has already burned 241,600 hectares, was 35 percent contained and the latter circa 18 percent contained. “It´s been a pretty good night but we are still ramping up our operation and bringing in more crews,” said Los Padres information officer John Ahlman. Governor Arnold Schwarznegger has been visiting various fire sites and announced on Saturday that 400 members of the National Guard were transferred to help exhausted fire crews. “Many of the firefighter have been working 24, 36, 48 hours without any sleep at any given time, so it´s really very, very tough,” he said. Around 1,800 fires broke out since June 20 with three hundred still remaining active. Not only dry climate is the reason for frequent wildfires, but also Santa Ana winds and of course housing boom, which brought houses into remote forest areas.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080707/wl_afp/usfire;_ylt=Ag_nwdjfwT6m1dpLf3hurxCs0NUE

by Zuzana Zelenakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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