October 28, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 1, 1424

LOS ANGELES, Oct 27: Firestorms roared through California on Monday, after killing at least 13 people, forcing tens of thousands from their homes and disrupting air travel across North America, officials said.

US President George Bush promised federal resources to help fight the flames. He said his office had assured Governor Gray Davis and other lawmakers “that the federal government will provide all resources necessary at the request of the state to work and fight these fires”.

“We want to help put them out. This is a devastating fire and it’s a dangerous fire and we’re prepared to help in any way we can,” Mr Bush said in Washington.

Davis Sunday declared a state of emergency in four counties in the south of the most populous US state as a giant new blaze began invading the city of San Diego, forcing thousands of more residents to flee.

Ten fires were raging across the state, fuelled by treacherously high winds and tinder-dry forests that have destroyed at least 800 homes and devoured 110,800 hectares of land.

“I know this is a difficult time,” Davis told the tens of thousands of people forced out of their homes by flames or the threat of flames. “These are the worst fires we’ve faced in California in 10 years.”

Declaring emergencies in Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura and San Bernardino counties, he pledged all possible resources to fight the flames.

The state’s biggest blaze, covering 46,000 hectares, erupted on Sunday and joined another major fire threatening San Diego, a city of 1.2 million people.

Together they have chewed up at least 56,000 hectares and burned at 450 buildings, including 150 homes in the city, which was under a thick pall of smoke.

“The fires are completely out of control,” said an official. “The potential for destruction is really incalculable at this point.”

Schools and courts in the area were ordered closed on Monday while a major American football game was moved out of state.

Sheriff’s department emergency dispatchers were forced to don face masks in their downtown San Diego offices because of the smoke invading the city centre. “It looks like some sort of Armageddon out here,” one said.

The fires, which officials do not expect to control until Nov 5, jumped the border into Mexico, where authorities were on alert, as thousands of weary firefighters battled desperately to bring the fast-moving and unpredictable flames under control.

Flames and smoke caused major traffic snarl-ups, with many major freeways closed.

One of the San Diego fires forced the evacuation of a key air traffic control hub responsible for landing and take off all planes into and out of southern California, causing nationwide aviation chaos.

The Federal Aviation Administration shifted operations to a radar facility northeast of Los Angeles, but scores of flights were cancelled or delayed across the United States and Canada.

Eleven of the confirmed fire-related deaths occurred near San Diego, including at least two people who died in their burning car as they tried to outrun the flames fanned by the region’s furious Santa Ana winds.—AFP