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Crews make progress against Malibu fire

Fire crews hoped mild temperatures and gentle winds Sunday would help them solidify gains against the sprawling wildfire that destroyed dozens of homes in this upscale coastal community.

Hot, powerful winds that fanned the blaze across 4,720 acres starting early Saturday were not expected Sunday, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Ron Haralson said.

The fire was about 40 percent contained, with few flames visible to the three water-dropping helicopters deployed over the fire zone, Haralson said.

"Winds have subsided considerably and we're making good headway," he said.

Forty-nine homes were destroyed Saturday by the fast-moving wildfire pushed by Santa Ana winds. Twenty-seven other homes were damaged and 10,000 to 14,000 people were evacuated.

The seaside enclave had been recovering from last month's 4,565-acre Canyon Fire that destroyed six homes, two businesses and a church when the winds began whipping up again overnight Saturday.

Some residents whose property made it through last month's fire unscathed weren't so lucky this time.

"This time I lost," said a soot-covered Glen Sunyich, who watched his stucco and tile house he built in 1990 slowly burn to the ground. "It means that I didn't build it well enough."

Hundreds of firefighters and equipment from throughout the state had been positioned in Southern California for most of the week because of the predicted Santa Ana winds. Residents said they have grown accustomed to the potential fire danger when the strong gusts blow.

"Waking up at 4 in the morning with the smell of smoke in your nose and the wind beating at the windows is something that we learn to live with here, but it always comes as something of a shock," Mayor Jeff Jennings said.

All of the homes were destroyed in the fire's initial Saturday morning surge before the winds slowed and firefighters gained a foothold.

With the winds dying down considerably, an estimated half of the evacuees were allowed to return home. Full containment was expected by Tuesday, officials said.

Fifteen helicopters and 15 airplanes including a retardant-dropping DC-10 jumbo jet attacked from the air Saturday while 1,700 firefighters battled flames on the ground. Six firefighters suffered minor injuries.

Investigators had determined that the fire, which broke out along a dirt road off a paved highway, was caused by humans, but had not determined if it was started intentionally, said county fire Inspector Rick Dominguez.

Malibu, with homes tucked into deep and narrow canyons along 27 miles of coast on the southern foot of the Santa Monica Mountains, is prone to Santa Ana-driven wildfires. Among them was a 1993 blaze that destroyed 388 structures, including 268 homes, and killed three people.

Saturday's fire was west of the areas of Malibu that burned in October.

Santa Ana winds, triggered by high pressure over the Great Basin, blow into Southern California from the north and northeast, racing through the canyons and passes of the region's east-west mountain ranges and out to sea, pushing back the normal flow of moist ocean air.

Carol Stoddard said she had only a few moments to leave her home in the middle of the night as flames approached her home.

The 48-year-old freelance videographer and photographer captured some of the fire's destruction as she left. But it wasn't until she returned that she was able to survey the damage.

Her $2 million wooden home and collection of 12 uninsured cars were gone. Appearing in shock, she said she was numb.

Another resident who reportedly lost his home was Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, whose real name is Michael Balzary, property records showed.

Balzary had purchased another home in Malibu last year, but the one destroyed was for sale for $4.8 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.

For a time a hotspot flared several ridges behind Pepperdine University, but the campus did not appear to have been endangered. Helicopters used its broad oceanview lawn as a landing zone.

When the fire broke out, university officials told students to move to a campus shelter, although the school remained largely empty because of the holiday weekend.

Two high schools were set up to handle evacuees, but no one had come to one school and the other only had 20 people.

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

Fire strikes Malibu again

The view from Latigo Canyon was dramatic, but Gerry Wersh and girlfriend Laura Bevitz had no time to take it in as they used shovels to bury hot embers from the fire that swept close to Wersh's home early Saturday.

"It was like a wall, a solid wall," Wersh, 46, said of the 75-foot-high flames driven by Santa Ana winds.

"I tell you there was one point where I thought it was gone," Wersh said as singed rock and smoldering logs littered the road in front of his still-standing home and clumps of brush continued to burn nearby.

But they were the lucky ones after flames raced through the canyons and mountains of Malibu for the second time in little more than a month.

Forty-nine homes were destroyed, 27 others were damaged, and 10,000 to 14,000 people evacuated, said Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman.

The fire erupted shortly before in the wee hours after long-predicted Santa Ana winds finally arrived, and it quickly grew before the winds died down. By midafternoon it was not even half contained.

"Waking up at 4 in the morning with the smell of smoke in your nose and the wind beating at the windows is something that we learn to live with here, but it always comes as something of a shock," said Mayor Jeff Jennings.

Helicopters and airplanes, including a retardant-dropping DC-10 jumbo jet, attacked from the air, while hundreds of firefighters battled flames on the ground. Six firefighters suffered minor injuries.

"It's great to be able to say that we have no loss of lives," Jennings said.

Helicopters lowered hoses into pools and the nearby Pacific to refill their tanks for water-dropping runs, and SuperScooper amphibious airplanes skimmed the ocean to reload.

Hundreds of firefighters and equipment from throughout the state had been positioned in Southern California for most of the week because of the winds, which had been expected to blow most of the week but didn't arrive until late Friday.

Officials remained wary despite the decrease in wind speed.

The mayor urged residents to "listen to your radios, go outside and see which way the wind is blowing. Stay alert. Stay vigilant."

The Malibu fire broke out along a dirt road off a paved highway and there did not appear to be power lines in the area, Freeman said. Investigators were trying to determine the cause, he said.

A hotspot flared for a time on several ridges behind Pepperdine University, but the campus did not appear to have been endangered. Helicopters used its broad oceanview lawn as a landing zone.

University officials told students to move to a campus shelter as a precaution, although the school remained largely empty because of the holiday weekend.

Another fire near Ramona in San Diego County was fully contained at 50 acres. A firefighter suffered a minor cut when an air tanker dropped heavy retardant on a fire engine, breaking its windshield.

Power lines blown down by fierce winds caused last month's fire in Malibu, which destroyed six homes, two businesses and a church. That blaze was part of siege of more than 15 Santa Ana-stoked wildfires that destroyed more than 2,000 homes, killed 14 people and blackened a total of 809 square miles from Los Angeles County to the Mexican border.

Santa Anas, triggered by high pressure over the Great Basin, blow into Southern California from the north and northeast, racing down through the canyons and passes of the region's east-west mountain ranges and out to sea, pushing back the normal flow of moist ocean air.

Malibu, with homes tucked into deep, narrow canyons along 27 miles of coast at the southern foot of the Santa Monica Mountains, is prone to Santa Ana-driven wildfires. One blaze in 1993 destroyed 388 structures, including 268 homes, and killed three people.

Saturday's fire burned to the west of the portions of Malibu that burned in October.

Neighbors alerted one another, while authorities drove through Corral Canyon, a neighborhood of about 350 homes, telling people to leave.

Meredith Lobel-Angel, 51, and her husband Frank Angel, 54, said they had seen numerous fires threaten their split-level stucco home over the past decade. This time they had 15 minutes to leave and managed to take little but some clothes and their laptops.

"I ran out on the deck, and I just saw a little fire and smoke up the canyon on the ridge (about a mile away)," Frank Angel said. "By the time we evacuated it was already over the ridge. It spread faster than I've ever seen it."

Carol Stoddard, 48, a freelance videographer and photographer, captured some of the fire's destruction as trees beside her home and her collection of 12 uninsured cars burned.

"I stayed there until I couldn't breathe and the embers were flying everywhere," she said. "It was dark and I was standing around my house. I couldn't see. I couldn't grab enough stuff that was of importance like my passport."

She later returned to find that her wooden $2 million home had burned to the foundation. Appearing in shock, she said she was numb.

Robert Jablon - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

N.C. Beach House Fire Kills 7 Students

OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. (AP) - An intense fire ravaged a beach house packed with more than a dozen college students early Sunday, killing seven and leaving little left of the structure but its charred frame and the stilts on which it stood.

Six survivors were hospitalized and released, including one who jumped from the burning home and into a waterway, Mayor Debbie Smith said. The cause was being investigated.

``There were three kids sitting on the ground screaming,'' said newspaper deliverer Tim Burns, who called 911 after seeing a column of smoke rising from the house. ``There was one guy hanging out the window, and he jumped in the canal. I know he got out because he was yelling for a girl to follow him.''

Burns said he didn't know whether that girl was able to escape.

Officials at the University of South Carolina said six of the students who died were from the school in Columbia; the seventh attended Clemson University. The six who survived were also from USC. The private home was being used by the owner's daughter and a group of her friends, Smith said.

``These are young people in the prime of their life,'' USC President Andrew Sorensen said at a news conference. ``They had so much to look forward to, and it's just profoundly tragic.''

Students will have access to counselors, residence hall advisers and clergy members, Sorensen said. Classes will be held Monday.

Dennis Pruitt, dean of students, said the fire appears to have affected two Greek organizations - the Delta Delta Delta sorority and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Earlier in the day, a campus minister at the sorority house declined to comment, as did an adult who answered the door at the fraternity house. Messages left with the national headquarters of the organizations were not immediately returned.

The fire struck sometime before 7 a.m. and burned completely through the first and second floors, leaving only part of the frame standing. The waterfront home - named ``Changing Channels'' - was built on stilts, forcing firefighters to climb a ladder onto the house's deck to reach the first living floor.

The house was a total loss.

``We ran down the street to get away,'' said Nick Cain, a student at the University of North Carolina who was staying at a house about 100 feet away. ``The ash and the smoke were coming down on us. We were just trying to get away.''

Cain was one of the dozens of college students who filled at least four houses within a block of the burned home. Neighbor Jeff Newsome said the students were going back and forth between the houses all weekend long.

``We didn't have any big complaints,'' Newsome said. ``The lights were on all night. They were having a good time.''

Winds blowing flames over the water, and not toward any of the other residences on the tightly packed row of vacation homes, kept the fire from spreading. The intense heat kept Burns and others from attempting a rescue, although he said he had to fight to keep several of those who escaped from trying. When he approached the front door, he said, it was too hot to open.

``When I was going up to the entryway, you could hear the windows above me explode,'' Burns said. ``When I knew the flames had taken over, I don't think I've ever felt as helpless in my life.''

Some of the people in the house had been friends since high school, said Rick Wylie of Greenville, S.C., who identified his son Trip as the young man who jumped from the burning home.

``He's in shock,'' Wylie said. ``It's just an incomprehensible thing for these parents.''

Authorities erected a blue tarp to block the view of the fire scene, but neighbor Bob Alexander said he saw investigators removing bodies from the remnants of the home early Sunday afternoon.

``It's terrible to see somebody's children come out of that house this way,'' Alexander said.

Rebecca Wood, president of Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity at UNC Chapel Hill, said she and about 35 other students were staying at two houses nearby and had befriended the USC students. Wood was at the home that burned as late as 1:30 a.m. Sunday, hours before the blaze struck, she said.

``I think right now most of our kids are just really shocked,'' said Wood, a senior. ``That's something that you never expect to happen - and then to stand and watch it happen is just horrific.''

The victims' bodies were to be taken to the state medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill. Authorities from the State Bureau of Investigation and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are leading the investigation, said Randy Thompson, Brunswick County's emergency services director.

The home had working smoke detectors, Smith said.

Ocean Isle Beach is at the southern end of North Carolina's Atlantic Coast, about 30 miles north of Myrtle Beach, S.C. Only about 500 people live there year-round, but the town is home to several thousand rental and vacation homes and condos.

The burned home sits on one of a series of peninsulas, all tightly packed with homes, that are about two blocks from the beach and connect with the Intracoastal Waterway.

Associated Press Writer

Californians endure 7 days of wildfires

SAN DIEGO - They know what the winds can do. They forecast them. Fight the fires the winds fan. Ready for evacuations that, in years past, never came. They thought they knew, until seven days of fury began a week ago.

From almost the beginning, this Santa Ana was different somehow.

Meteorologist Philip Gonsalves recognized it when he saw the smoke through the picture windows of the National Weather Service Rancho Bernardo, closing in on the office itself. He had helped forecast the tempest: an ominous combination of strong gusts, low humidity and soaring temperatures. In weather speak: red flag fire conditions. station in

Fire Battalion Chief Tom Zeulner understood it, too, when en route to his first blaze of the week, his wife called to tell him five more had begun.

Dan Crane thought it was "situation normal," his words for the Santa Ana fire season that torments Californians every October through February, when blustery winds blow out of the desert. He's lived through a half-century of them, and never once had to evacuate — not even during the two-week onslaught of 2003, when fires burned 750,000 acres and killed 22 people.

This time, he awoke to neighbors honking and smoke wafting through his windows.

By Saturday, more than a half-million acres would be gone, 1,700 homes destroyed, with the damage surpassing $1 billion.

Stunned homeowners who just last weekend were setting out Halloween decorations and watching football would find themselves sifting through kindling and ash, mumbling things like: This used to be my kitchen. This used to be my bedroom.

This used to be ...

Even a week after it all started, several thousand would remain evacuated as blazes burned on relentlessly.

There would be questions about prevention in the midst of persistent drought, lack of preparation in a fire-plagued state and whether resources were put to use as fast as possible.

But first, before all of that, came the winds.

They were different, undoubtedly, although no one could have predicted just how deadly and destructive.

___

Gonsalves is a man who usually takes things in stride, especially the weather, perhaps because he knows it so well. He knows how easily a fire can kick up when the winds get going, and computer models at work had predicted a nasty Santa Ana for days.

And so, on Sunday morning when he stepped out of church and sniffed smoke, he was hardly surprised.

"It's begun," he thought. "Here we go again."

The surprise came hours later, when Gonsalves arrived home from the gym and turned on the news.

Fires — plural — were everywhere:

The Ranch Fire, sparked at 9:42 p.m. the night before, racing through 500 acres some 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

The Canyon Fire, ignited at 4:50 a.m. in Malibu, forcing 1,500 people — even Hollywood's elite — to evacuate.

The Harris Fire, begun at 9:23 a.m. southeast of San Diego, exploding to 500 acres in just over three hours.

The Witch Creek Fire, burning at 12:37 p.m. in a mountain town northeast of San Diego, consuming 3,000 acres in two hours.

At the Weather Service office in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo, Gonsalves' colleagues watched as satellite images showed plume after plume of smoke roaring over a swath of Southern California. Their computers are programmed to display wildfire hot spots as little red squares. Red squares seemed to cover the lower half of the state.

By evening, the forecasters had to shut off the air conditioning to stop smoke from seeping into the office. Back at home, on his day off, Gonsalves was thinking about what to pack — just in case his own family had to flee.

Sunday was an off-day for Zeulner, as well. He, too, had gone to church, near his home in San Luis Obispo , and was having lunch when he got word: "You guys are going."

A battalion chief with the city fire department, Zeulner commands a 20-member strike team that operates five, Type 1 fire engines, ideal for defending homes and structures. The team, when called upon, can be dispatched anywhere.

They were summoned to the Ranch Fire, to help protect homes in the tiny citrus-growing village of Piru.

"Immediate need," Zeulner had been told. In other words: Get there fast.

By 2 p.m., the caravan of engines was on the road, Zeulner monitoring AM radio for fire updates. The 33-year veteran was alarmed by what he heard. Winds were gusting from 60 to 80 mph; in some places, they exceeded 100 mph.

"That's hurricane force," thought Zeulner, who knew from experience that anything over 60 mph was unusual during Santa Ana season.

When the team arrived at the fire, they were told to bed down and be ready to work at dawn the next day. Zeulner set up camp in a park under the smoky sky, but rest was hard to come by.

His sleeping bag rocked back and forth throughout the night, the mighty winds tossing him about like a leaf.

___

Crane awoke early Monday and looked at the clock: 4 a.m. He smelled smoke coming through his bedroom window, but when he got up to shut it, he heard something on the street below. A car honking, he thought. He peered outside.

Rancho Bernardo's Lancashire Way, Crane's home for 20 years, looked like an erupting volcano.

"We gotta go!" he yelled to his wife, Sherry, still in bed. "Now!"

Their neighbor's wooden fence was ablaze, the palm trees in front of that house igniting like matchsticks. Glowing embers shot horizontally across the street. To the north and east, a line of flames lit up the ridge near a subdivision called The Trails. To the south, Battle Mountain, directly behind Crane's home, went up like a Roman candle.

Terrified neighbors roused one another with phone calls and knocks on the door, driving past police officers who cruised a nearby street, shouting through bullhorns, "Evacuate! Now!"

Elsewhere across San Diego County, reverse 911 calls alerted residents to fires that had gone out of control overnight. In a day, the Witch Creek Fire grew from 3,000 acres to 30,000, eating through the communities of Rancho Bernardo, Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe, Poway — taking out multimillion-dollar estates and modest ranch homes.

The biggest evacuation in California state history was just getting started. Some 560,000 would be forced from their homes in San Diego County alone. Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL's San Diego Chargers, was opened to evacuees in a scene reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina. The Del Mar Fairgrounds and schools housed others.

At the Weather Service office, Gonsalves arrived just after 6 a.m. to start his regular shift. He saw the smoke hanging low out the window, the line of cars snaking down West Bernardo Drive. Three hours later, the forecasters received a reverse 911.

They, too, packed up and decamped.

By nightfall, more than 500 homes had already been demolished in San Diego County. Two fires that began just that day in the mountain vacation haven of Lake Arrowhead would destroy 300 more. Elsewhere across California, more than a dozen fires were now burning, incinerating 374 square miles in seven counties.

And Monday afternoon, this warning from the Weather Service: "Strong winds are expected to redevelop tonight."

The wrath of the Santa Anas was far from over.

___

All the chatter on the radio was about San Diego. But Zeulner and his crew had their own firefight to deal with — for 4 1/2 hours Tuesday afternoon near Piru, after a blowing ember landed in steep vegetation.

They had spent much of their time doing structure protection: clearing away brush and moving wood piles stacked next to wood-sided homes, work homeowners themselves should have done in this drought-stricken state. The Ranch Fire, 1,000 acres when Zeulner first got the assignment, had grown to almost 40,000.

But he was proud that his crew had yet to lose a home.

In San Diego, Crane couldn't say the same. Tuesday, watching the news with his son at a friend's house where they'd taken refuge, he saw a reporter walking up and down Lancashire Way. Flames still burned from the remnants of some houses.

"Twenty-five homes, on this one block ... have burned to the ground," the reporter was saying.

And, then, he started reading off house numbers.

For a moment, Crane and his son thought they didn't hear 18626. Then: "635 ... 629 ... 626 ..." the reporter said.

Crane and his boy, whose own family lived a mile away but whose house survived, looked at each other.

"Now we know," Crane said.

___

Over the next two days, such heartbreaking discoveries happened again and again across the region. At a blaze farther north in Santa Clarita, Don Benson found his house and prized 1957 Thunderbird in ruins. A neighbor drove by, sending a wish for better days: "I hope God is good to you." "I believe in him," Benson called back, "but sometimes it wears thin."

Zeulner, whose team late Wednesday was dispatched to San Diego to pitch in, escorted an elderly couple to their lost home in Escondido the next day. "We're sorry for your loss," he told them. "We're here to help." What else could he say?

Even as President Bush arrived on Thursday, offering words of comfort, there was more devastating news: A 58-year-old mortgage broker and his 55-year-old wife, a teacher, were found in the rubble of an Escondido home. Another 52-year-old man died after refusing to leave his house during evacuations. The charred remains of four others, believed to be illegal immigrants, were found in the woods near the border. Authorities were investigating whether the deaths were due to the fires.

Word that at least one of the major blazes, in Orange County, was deliberately set spread further outrage.

And still more towns faced new evacuations, among them Julian, an apple-picking hamlet in the mountains northeast of San Diego, and Jamul, a community near the border where homes can go for a million-plus.

There was, however, one reason for optimism. By Thursday night, the ruthless winds that fueled the calamity had finally died.

___

Come Friday, Gonsalves and his colleagues were back at their computers at the weather office, swapping war stories in between work about their own fire encounters. The office was unscathed, but for the lingering stench of smoke.

Gonsalves was lucky; his family never had to evacuate. One colleague remained displaced from his home in Julian, though even that evacuation order had lifted by Saturday morning.

Zeulner was enjoying his first 24 hours off in five days, although, given the circumstances, enjoying hardly seemed the right word. He still had no idea when he might head home, or whether he'd miss a vacation to see his 5-month-old granddaughter.

And at 6 a.m. Saturday, he and his crew reported for yet another day of duty in San Diego.

He joked that he'd better at least be back by Dec. 28 — the day he retires from the fire department.

"I got in the fire service to help people," he said, his eyes reddening with tears because, despite so much loss, he believes he did help people this past week. "It's a good feeling."

At the remains of his home on Lancashire Way, Crane's eyes were noticeably dry of tears. Instead, there was a sense of optimism in him and the neighbors who flooded back to begin cleaning up, and returned Saturday to pick up more pieces. They exchanged hugs and "I'm so sorrys," talked about getting together, already, in the coming days to discuss rebuilding.

"Did I want to start over at this time in my life? No," 60-year-old Crane said. "But my family is fine. I'm fine."

Everything else, he said, "is just stuff. I can make it through this."

Like the soot-covered CorningWare dish, the ceramic salt shaker and his father's old circular saw that he recovered from the ashes — "little miracles," a neighbor called such precious finds, so desperately needed in a week of so few.

By PAULINE ARRILLAGA, AP National Writer

Poor air from wildfires a health threat

LOS ANGELES - Even as many of the wildfires in flame-ravaged Southern California died down and residents returned home, lingering dust and soot-laden air made it difficult for many to breathe even a sigh of relief Saturday.

Air quality remained poor in the central San Bernardino Mountains and parts of the San Bernardino Valley, as well as swaths of Orange and Riverside Counties. In San Diego County, where only two of five major fires was more than 50 percent contained, the air was especially dismal Friday.

That worried Joe Flynn, 48, as he prepared to return home to Ramona, northeast of San Diego, after he and thousands of other evacuees sought shelter Qualcomm Stadium this week.

But the pull to get back to normal was even stronger.

"Sure I'm worried about breathing that stuff up there," he said. "It's not cool but everyone is dying to get back home."

Satellite pictures showed thick smoke continuing to hang over the entire region, affecting schools, events and the health of residents all over Southern California.

Residents staying in areas with bad air were advised to avoid exerting themselves. Children and people with heart and respiratory conditions were urged to stay indoors with the windows and doors closed and the air conditioner on.

"In the immediate aftermath of a fire, we're all at risk of the fine particulate matter we can inhale," said Julia Robinson Shimizu, a spokeswoman for Breathe L.A. "In general it's good to limit outdoor strenuous activity at least seven days after the fires have ended."

The University of California San Diego Medical Center saw an increase in patients coming in with breathing troubles they believe were related to air pollution, spokeswoman Jackie Carr said.

Mayor Jerry Sanders said the NFL's San Diego Chargers would play Sunday's game scheduled at Qualcomm. The stadium can seat more than 70,000 people.

But Ross Porter, a spokesman for the American Lung Association of California, urged fans to use caution when deciding whether to attend.

"Sometimes its better to sit quietly at home and watch it on TV," he said.

Meanwhile, about 23,000 homes were still threatened by five major blazes in three counties. Altogether, more than a dozen fires raced across more than 503,000 acres — the equivalent of 786 square miles — although many of the blazes have been contained.

At least three people — and possibly as many as seven — have been killed by flames. About 1,700 homes have been destroyed and damage estimates have surpassed $1 billion.

On Friday, tens of thousands of displaced families began returning to their fire-ravaged communities, but it will likely be months or even years before they recover what they left behind when they fled giant walls of flames.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said he would appear Saturday at an Orange County fire command post to discuss efforts to find arsonists and to warn about charlatans peddling insurance scams to fire victims.

On Friday, the governor signed an executive order he said would cut red tape by directing state agencies to aid fire victims with such things as filing for tax extensions and unemployment insurance.

On the other side of the Cleveland National Forest, residents in the Riverside County town of Corona worried that flames they had watched on the news all week might reach them. They filled an elementary school Friday to hear that there was no imminent threat. Some packed valuables in their cars, just in case.

"Your feelings are real but we want to relieve some of that anxiety," John Hawkins, Riverside County fire chief, told residents.

Also Friday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein urged Congressional leaders to provide an additional $1 billion for firefighting and fire recovery efforts.

The National Weather Service had some good news for firefighters: Winds were forecast to be light on Saturday, with highs hovering around 80 in most of the active fire areas.

Insurance industry says California wildfires won't cause premium hikes

Home premium hikes not expected

As the wildfires that ravaged Southern California for five days lost momentum this week, representatives of the insurance industry said the estimated $1 billion in fire damage would have little if any impact on homeowners' rates in California or the rest of the nation.

"It's well within the range of losses we expect to see in California every few years," said economist Robert Hartwig, president of the Insurance Information Institute. "That means the rate in this area is already reflected with the risk associated with wildfires."

After Hurricane Katrina and the Florida hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, insurance premiums in the Gulf area and parts of Florida doubled over three years, according to institute records. When 2006 turned out to be relatively hurricane-free, the higher premiums contributed to record insurance-industry profits.

That history led Californians and industry observers to express concern that insurers might raise rates or make it tougher to get policies in high-risk areas susceptible to hurricanes, floods and wildfires.

"The insurance companies have always taken advantage of crises like this to increase premiums," said Les Brown, a Los Angeles lawyer who has sued insurance companies on behalf of policyholders. "I would imagine they will try to raise some, particularly in areas like Southern California."

Donald Light, a senior analyst with Celent, a Boston firm that advises financial service companies, said the industry might try to raise premiums for those in high-risk areas or offer more limited coverage in areas even beyond California such as the Gulf or the East Coast.

But industry representatives said Thursday that the damage from the California fires paled in comparison to the $41.1 billion chalked up to Katrina and would have little impact on rates.

They noted that in 2003, when fires caused more than $2 billion in damage in the San Diego area, rates did not spike.

Jason Kimbrough, a spokesman for the California insurance commissioner, concurred: "There was no spike."

The Washington Post