Californians return to homes destroyed by fire

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By Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Stunned, bedraggled evacuees began returning home on Monday to three areas of southern California ravaged by wildfires, some finding their homes and cars reduced to piles of smouldering, melted rubble.

The fires blazed on, though diminished winds and cooler temperatures helped keep them in check, and thick smoke hung over much of the area, stinging the eyes and making breathing difficult.

Weary fire-fighters still fought to contain fires in the foothills north of Los Angeles, in Orange County to the southeast and at the celebrity-studded enclave of Montecito near Santa Barbara.

Three fires have over the past five days destroyed around 1,000 homes and blackened 55 square miles (142 sq km) across southern California. Authorities said it would take several days to put out all of the fires but needed cooperation from unpredictable winds.

With most neighbourhoods seemingly out of danger and the fires driven into unpopulated areas, many of the estimated 50,000 evacuees were being allowed to return home.

In Sylmar, residents of a mobile home park where some 500 homes were lost were given a tour of the devastation to see what, if anything, they had left. Search teams with cadaver dogs scoured the ruins looking for human remains.

No one was believed to have died in the complex. But because the area was evacuated in a hurry, and only about a quarter of the roughly 1,700 residents were officially accounted for, authorities were taking no chances.

Those residents whose dwellings burnt to the ground were shuttled to the site in buses, where they viewed the scorched ruins from inside the vehicles.

ELDERLY RESIDENTS LEFT WITH NOTHING

Smaller groups of residents from about 100 homes left standing were given 10 minutes each to retrieve a bag or two of personal belongings. Most carried out a change of clothes, medications and other necessities while others retrieved more symbolic items.

Retiree Deborah Midelton, 60, grabbed her grandmother's antique brass candlesticks, saying they had survived two world wars and earthquakes.

"I think this is the closest I've been to a war zone," Midelton said. "The front of the house is OK. From the kitchen on back, it's just gone."

Marie Larsen, 70, said she needed to see for herself the destruction she had only imagined.

"I've just got to know that it's really not there. It's really hard to accept that it's not," she said. "I came into this world with nothing. I guess I'll go out with nothing, too,"

Larsen had escaped with her two cats moments before her home of 16 years was consumed by flames. Her 82-year-old friend and roommate, who is bedridden, was carried out by rescuers as flames licked at their windows.

Jacqueline Burns, 77, said she and her husband, Len, 79, went back to find their home singed, with some broken windows, a missing door and other minor damage. But Burns was shocked by the devastation and stunned to find some gutted homes next door to others left untouched.

"I was crying all the way up," she said of her brief visit. "On our block, there were flowers on the bushes. Then you turn the corner, and the whole street is gone."

Residents in Yorba Linda, south of Los Angeles, also spent the day picking through the charred wreckage of their homes. In one neighbourhood, perched on a ridge overlooking wooded canyons, eight homes were destroyed.

"It was really hard when we first got here, it was shocking," 23-year-old Brittney Fowler said of returning with her family to the home she had lived in her entire life.

Fowler recalled racing through the home two days earlier, grabbing a few pictures and other mementos as the flames marched down a hillside towards her. She remembered thinking: "I'll miss you, house."

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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