Wildfire forces evacuation of California's Big Sur

"The firefighters need to move their equipment there," saidMaia Carroll, a spokeswoman for Monterey County. "We can't haveresidents going down and fire equipment going up at the sametime."

The evacuation order for some 850 residents and the area'sinns and campgrounds followed the blaze jumping a defence line,which required crews to rush equipment to the scene, Carrollsaid.

The fire has burned more than 52,000 acres (21,045hectares) since breaking out on June 21.

Firefighters have managed to contain only 3 percent of theblaze, which is threatening nearly 1,300 structures, as the BigSur region's steep slopes along California's central coastimpede efforts to control the blaze. Thick dry vegetation,winds and warm weather have added to firefighters' troubles.

Seventeen structures have been destroyed by the fire, whichroughly 1,550 firefighters and other personnel are battling,backed by 69 engines, eight helicopters and seven air tankers.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Federal EmergencyManagement Agency chief David Paulison visited Big Sur onWednesday for a briefing on the status of the fire, one of manylarge blazes across California.

Schwarzenegger said more than 19,000 firefighters and otherpersonnel have contained 85 percent of the hundreds of firessparked two weeks ago, mostly by a wave of lightning strikes.

"We have 1,416 engines that are working on those fires andmore than 100 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft also are outthere helping with this effort," he said.

Another major fire is raging east of Big Sur in the VentanaWilderness and the Los Padres National Forest. At the forest'ssouthern end, a fire near Santa Barbara has forced homeownersto evacuate.

(Reporting by Jim Christie; Editing by Mary Milliken andTodd Eastham)