Video

Fierce wildfires continue to rage across Southern California, threatening more than 60,000 homes as night fell on Tuesday (October 23), forcing half a million people to flee in the state's largest evacuation. California's worst fires in four years, driven by hot Santa Ana winds that have not relented for three days, tormented the San Diego area in the south and threatened mountain communities farther north. Some 1,500 homes and other structures had been destroyed by the fires as of Tuesday night and the 500,000 people evacuated in their path was the largest in the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. Most of the destroyed homes were in the San Diego area, where four major wildfires burned unchecked and one person was killed on Sunday (October 21). Four other deaths were reported among the evacuees and more than three dozen people had been injured, including 18 firefighters. Firefighters battled flames that shot more than 100 feet (30 metres) high, as they desperately tried to save homes in the fires' path. As the firestorms raged past nightfall, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President George W. Bush to upgrade California's wildfires to a "major disaster," which would trigger federal help. Schwarzenegger said 68,000 homes, from cabins to luxury villas, were threatened state-wide and 10,000 men and women were working the fire lines. More than 300,000 acres (120,000 hectares) have been blackened and the state government put economic losses in the...