Pakistani police beat protesters

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Police swung batons and fired tear gas at supporters of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto demonstrating near Pakistan's parliament Wednesday, deepening a political crisis triggered by the imposition of military rule.

Associated Press reporters saw hundreds of protesters pushing metal barricades into ranks of riot police blocking their path toward the parliament building, where state television reported that government lawmakers unanimously endorsed President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule.

Police beat several activists, some of them women, who broke through, and dragged at least six people from the scene.

Naheed Khan, a close female aide to Bhutto, stuck a policeman on the shoulder and screamed at him: "Who are you? How dare you take action against women?"

The demonstrators pulled back amid a cloud of tear gas, chanting "Benazir! Benazir!" and "Down with the emergency!"

Thousands of people have been rounded up and put in jail or under house arrest since Musharraf declared a state of emergency Saturday, and three days of protests by lawyers have been quickly put down with force.

Violent clashes with Bhutto's supporters could increase the uncertainty engulfing the country. Bhutto set a collision course with Musharraf on Wednesday by calling her supporters to defy a ban on rallies by marching on parliament and also attending a mass rally in the nearby city of Rawalpindi on Friday.

"I request my brothers and sisters to reach Rawalpindi at all costs," Bhutto told a news conference.

But the mayor of Rawalpindi, a garrison city just south of Islamabad, said police would prevent anyone reaching the park where Bhutto hoped to address supporters on Friday.

"We will ensure that they don't violate the ban on rallies, and if they do it, the government will take action according to the law," mayor Javed Akhlas told the AP.

Musharraf suspended the constitution after declaring the state of emergency. He has since ousted independent-minded judges, put a stranglehold on the media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.

With the encouragement of the United States, Musharraf had held negotiations with Bhutto widely expected to lead to a power-sharing arrangement after parliamentary elections originally slated for January.

Bhutto said Tuesday that Musharraf's resort to authoritarian measures was a "breach of trust" with her and that the talks were off. However, she also suggested that they could resume if circumstances change.

"I think we should all come down as strongly as we can for the restoration of democracy. And if General Musharraf wants to find a way out, well the ball is in his court," she said.

The United States and other foreign donors to Pakistan are pressing loudly for the elections to be held on time. They are also urging Musharraf to keep a promise to quit his post as army chief — the real source of his power.

"For elections to be credible, opposition political party leaders and their party workers must be released from jail or house arrest. The media must be free to report on events and share their opinions with the public," U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said after meeting the head of the election commission on Tuesday.

Musharraf says he suspended the constitution because the courts were hampering Pakistan's effort to fight extremism — for instance by ordering the release of suspects held without charge. But opponents accuse him of a mounting a last-ditch maneuver to stay in power.

In an op-ed piece published in The New York Times, Bhutto urged the U.S. to tell Musharraf it expects internationally monitored elections to be held within 60 days.

"It is dangerous to stand up to a military dictatorship, but more dangerous not to," Bhutto wrote. "The moment has come for the Western democracies to show us in their actions, and not just in their rhetoric, which side they are on."

Bhutto invited other opposition parties to a meeting in Islamabad on Wednesday to discuss a joint strategy against the emergency. However, the party of Nawaz Sharif, the premier Musharraf deposed in a coup in 1999, snubbed the gathering.

Sharif urged the West to abandon Musharraf but also ruled out teaming up with Benazir Bhutto, another key opposition leader, unless she cut off talks with Musharraf.

Sharif told The Associated Press that Pakistan was heading deeper into chaos and his archenemy had outlived his usefulness in fighting terrorism.

"One man is holding the entire nation hostage for his personal interests," Sharif said.

"The political forces, the lawyers and civil community that believe in moderation and democracy, they are sidelined today. Who is going to get the benefit? It will be the radicals and extremists, they will thrive now," he said in a telephone interview from Saudi Arabia, where he was deported in September after attempting to return to Pakistan. "Mr. Musharraf is a man who has outlived his utility in terms of fighting any battle against terror."

Sharif, whose government was ousted by Musharraf in a 1999 coup and has spent the last seven years in exile, said thousands of his party members had been rounded up in the past four days.

He urged the public to protest against Musharraf, and predicted that unless the state of emergency was reversed and Musharraf ousted, the country could be pitched toward "catastrophe."

"Even the ruling junta today does not know how to go get out of this situation they have got into," he said.

Musharraf purged the Supreme Court just as it was preparing to rule on the legality of his contested re-election as president last month. The court also has pressed for authorities to allow the return of Sharif from exile in Saudi Arabia.

Lawyers particularly are incensed by the ouster of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, an independent-minded judge whom Musharraf had tried unsuccessfully to fire earlier this year.
Chaudhry is under house arrest in Islamabad but managed on Tuesday to use a cell phone to urge lawyers to take to the streets.

"We should act upon this message and it will be decided once and for all if the army or the people will rule Pakistan," Zaman said.

Rice presses diplomats on Iraq posts

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. envoy to Baghdad reminded diplomats on Friday of their duty to serve their country amid a revolt among some who are resisting forced assignments to Iraq.

In separate comments, Rice and Ambassador Ryan Crocker said that foreign service officers are obligated by their oath of office to work at any diplomatic mission worldwide, regardless of the risks involved or their personal feelings about the policies of any given administration.

"We are one foreign service and people need to serve where they are needed," Rice told reporters aboard her plane as she flew to Turkey for a weekend conference of top officials from Iraq's neighbors. Crocker also is attending the conference.

She noted that more than 1,500 of roughly 11,500 foreign service officers had already done Iraq duty voluntarily and, while expressing an understanding of the safety and security concerns of those who might be ordered to go, said they must uphold their commitments.

"I would hope others would think about their obligation not just to the country but their obligation to those who have already served," said Rice, who sent a worldwide diplomatic cable explaining the situation and appealing for volunteers to fill the 48 vacancies that the State Department must fill next year in Iraq.

"We will fill these new jobs as we have before — with volunteers," she said in the unclassified cable, which was made public by the State Department. "However, regardless of how the jobs may be filled, they must be filled. I believe strongly that it is our duty to do our part toward succeeding in the vital mission in Iraq given to us by the president."

On his way to the meeting in Turkey, Crocker offered an even blunter assessment, saying that diplomats have a responsibility to prioritize the nation's interest over their personal safety and that those who don't are "in the wrong line of business."

Joining the foreign service "does not mean you can choose the fight," he told reporters in Dubai. "It's not for us to decide if we like the policy or if the policy is rightly implemented. It's for us to go and serve, not to debate the policy, not to agree with it."

Crocker, a 36-year veteran diplomat who has worked throughout the Mideast and was personally skeptical of the Iraq war, has been the U.S. ambassador to Iraq since early this year.

Since his arrival, he has repeatedly asked for more and more experienced personnel to work at the Baghdad embassy and in Provincial Reconstruction Teams in outlying areas.

His requests have been given top priority by Rice and State Department management officials who have offered generous incentives, including extra danger pay, leave time and preference on next assignments to attract diplomats to volunteer for Iraq duty.

But facing a shortfall in volunteers, the department announced last week that it would identify 200 to 300 foreign service officers as "prime candidates" for 48 unclaimed positions in Iraq and that if not enough of them agreed to go, some would be ordered to do so under threat of dismissal.

The move is the largest diplomatic call-up to an active war zone since Vietnam and on Wednesday several hundred diplomats angrily complained about the step in a town hall meeting, with many applauding when a colleague likened it to a "potential death sentence."

Others complained about the fact that they would be separated from their families, a lack of training and support, and the prospect of returning from Iraq with physical or mental disabilities with few options for treatment, something Rice addressed in the cable.

"I commit to each of you that all those who serve in Iraq, and their families, will receive the department's full support before, during and after their assignment," she said. "I know you will continue to make our nation proud as you serve worldwide, dedicated to the mission, and ready to overcome any challenge."

The State Department says three foreign service personnel — two diplomatic security agents and one political officer — have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

The union that represents diplomats says the security situation is precarious and the completion of a new, heavily secured embassy compound and living quarters in Baghdad has been beset by logistical and construction problems.

The move to so-called "directed assignments" is rare but not unprecedented.

In 1969, an entire class of entry-level diplomats was sent to Vietnam. On a smaller scale, diplomats were required to work at various embassies in West Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.

LA fire started by boy with matches

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - A boy playing with matches started a fire in north Los Angeles County that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week, authorities said Tuesday.

The boy, whose name and age were not released, was interviewed a day after the Buckweed Fire was sparked Oct. 21, said sheriff's Sgt. Diane Hecht.

"He admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire," said Hecht said in a statement.

The boy was released to his parents, and the case will be be presented to the district attorney's office, Hecht said.

The 60-square-mile fire began in an area near Agua Dulce and quickly spread by fierce desert winds. It was among more than a dozen major wildfires that killed 14 people and blackened 809 square miles from Los Angeles to the Mexican border.

Authorities arrested five people for arson during that period, but none have been linked to any of the major blazes.

Wildfire pollution poses health threat

By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press Writer

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.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat and Allison Hoffman in San Diego contributed to this report.

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Evacuees return to ashes, uncertainty

By ALLISON HOFFMAN and SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writers

SAN DIEGO - As some wildfire evacuees returned to their neighborhoods to find only ashes where their homes once stood, others sought government help for dealing with the uncertainty of their upended lives.

Justin Miner was among hundreds of people who gathered Thursday at a disaster center in Rancho San Diego in San Diego County, where an array of federal, state and county agencies had clustered to offer assistance.

Miner was evacuated from his home in Deerhorn Valley and had just arrived with his family at Qualcomm Stadium when his wife — seven months pregnant — went into labor prematurely.

"Things could be a lot better," he said. "It's really bad timing. I'm out of my house, I'm out of my job, my wife's in the hospital. ... I got a 3-year-old with a broken arm and an 11-year old stepson. Would you be OK?"

Five hours later, Miner walked out of the disaster assistance center with food stamps, financial help from the Red Cross and a little bit of hope, though he still didn't know if his house was still standing.

"I walked out with a tremendous amount of help. It's more than I expected," he said.

Such facilities create a one-stop shop where disaster victims can more easily navigate the bewildering array of government and non-governmental assistance.

"What happens in a big disaster like this is that people are very confused, they don't know where to go for help," said Steven C. Preston, head of the Small Business Administration, which joined the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, the state Office of Emergency Services and dozens more agencies at the center.

"Especially in a large disaster like this, our first job is to give people a clear understanding of what we do," Preston said.

The Small Business Administration provides low-interest loans to businesses and — despite the agency's name — homeowners and renters to help with property damage and other costs.

FEMA, among other assistance, gives grants for temporary housing.

In San Diego's fire-ravaged Rancho Bernardo neighborhood, some residents who stayed behind grabbed garden hoses, ensuring their neighbors would be less likely to need FEMA's help.

Gail Jones, 46, came home Thursday to find a little paper American flag planted in her front yard. Residents who watered burning roofs placed flags in front of each of the homes where they put out fires.

"We got back and saw this flag, and that's how we knew they saved our house," she said, weeping. "Our roof is a little scorched, but that's it. If they hadn't been here, our houses could all have been gone."

Across the street, another neighbor wasn't as fortunate.

Robert Sanders, 56, a photographer, rented a house that was incinerated after flying embers hit its wooden shake-shingle roof.

A fire-resistant box containing all his transparencies survived, but its contents melted from the heat, he said. Also destroyed was the only photograph he had of his father and a photo of his wife with her father.

A charred copy of "The Little Engine That Could" belonging to Sanders' daughter lay open in what had been the master bedroom. The book had been his wife's when she was a child.

"I've lost my history," he said. "All the work I've done for the past 30 years, it's all destroyed."
When the evacuation orders were lifted in Rancho Bernardo on Thursday, mile-long lines of cars formed at the freeway exit off Interstate 15 as tens of thousands of residents waited to return to their neighborhoods.

Some, like Frank Monticello, 40, saw no reason to rush back to a house that was burned to the ground.

"Truthfully, we don't feel any urgency to get in there," he said. "We know it's gone."

Calif. wildfire losses top $1 billion

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO - The devastating wildfires in Southern California have caused at least $1 billion in damage in San Diego County alone, officials said Wednesday, as easing wind gave firefighters hope that they could begin to gain ground against the flames.

The fires, in their fourth day, had destroyed 1,500 homes and caused at least a half-million people to flee — the largest evacuation in state history. At least 1,200 of the damaged homes were in San Diego County, and officials believe that number will rise.
"Clearly, this is going to be a $1 billion or more disaster," Ron Lane, San Diego County's director of emergency services, told reporters during a news conference.
The announcement of San Diego's staggering losses came as President Bush signed a major disaster declaration for California in the wake of the wildfires that have charred about 426,000 acres, or about 665 square miles.
The declaration puts in motion long-term federal recovery programs to help state and local governments, families, individuals and certain nonprofit organizations recover. Bush plans to visit the state on Thursday.
"Americans all across this land care deeply about them," the president said after a Cabinet meeting convened to coordinate federal relief efforts. "We're concerned about their safety. We're concerned about their property."
The fierce Santa Ana wind that has stoked the explosive blazes had started to moderate Wednesday although stiff gusts continued to blow through some canyon areas. Forecasters said the wind eventually would be followed by cooling sea breezes.
Wind was reported blowing at a sustained speed of 21 to 36 mph in some areas Wednesday, considerably less than the gusts of up to 100 mph earlier in the week.
The shift could allow for a greater aerial assault and help firefighters beat back the most destructive blazes, said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
An unmanned NASA aircraft outfitted with high-tech imaging equipment took off Wednesday from Edwards Air Force Base on Wednesday for a 10-hour flight to help firefighters locate hot spots. Pilots at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center were remotely controlling the aircraft, outfitted with a thermal-infrared imaging system capable of seeing through thick smoke.
Crews also were anticipating additional firefighters and equipment from other states, mostly throughout the West. Frustration over the firefighting effort began to emerge Tuesday when a fire official said not enough had been done to protect homes.
Orange County Fire Chief Chip Prather told reporters that firefighters' lives were threatened because too few crews were on the ground. He said a quick deployment of aircraft could have corralled a massive blaze near Irvine.
"It is an absolute fact: Had we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire," he said.
The state's top firefighter said Prather misstated the availability of firefighters and equipment. Eight of the state's nine water-dumping helicopters were in Southern California by Sunday, when the first fires began, along with 13 air tankers, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Grijalva said the fires would have overwhelmed most efforts to fight them.
"Anyone that is complaining about the planes just wants to complain because there's a bunch of nonsense," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told ABC News. "The fact is that we could have all the planes in the world here — we have 90 aircraft here and six that we got especially from the federal government — and they can't fly because of the wind situation."
Twenty-one firefighters and at least 24 others have been injured. One person was killed by the flames, and the San Diego medical examiner's officer listed five other deaths as connected to the blazes.
Thousands of people remained in emergency shelters, where many had an agonizing wait to find out whether their homes had survived.
"I'm ready to go, but at the same time, I don't want to go up there and be surprised," said Mary Busch, 41, who did not know whether her home in Ramona, in San Diego County, was still standing. She has lived at the evacuation center at Qualcomm Stadium since Monday, sleeping in her SUV with her 11- and 8-year-old sons.
Others were eager to return to houses they were confident had survived.
"I called my home and my answering machine still works, so that's how I know we're OK," said Rancho Bernardo resident Fuli Du, who packed his belongings Wednesday preparing to leave Qualcomm.
He spent his 41st birthday Tuesday at the stadium, where he has been staying with his wife and two young sons.
More evacuation orders were issued Wednesday. Residents of the San Diego County communities of Fallbrook and Julian, an area devastated by a 2003 wildfire, were ordered out of their homes. Officials also were evacuating De Luz, an unincorporated community north of Camp Pendleton that was being threatened by a wildfire on the Marine base. The fire also closed Interstate 5 and the Metrolink commuter rail, snagging the morning commute.
However, residents were allowed to return to some areas of San Diego County including Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Del Mar, Encinitas and Solana Beach.
"There are some hot spots and issues there, but we wouldn't be letting people go back if it weren't safe," county spokeswoman Lesley Kirk said.
The city of San Diego was assessing whether to allow people to return to their homes in Rancho Bernardo, one of the hardest-hit areas, Mayor Jerry Sanders said.
A man accused of setting a small brush fire in a rural foothill area of the San Bernardino Mountains was booked for investigation of arson. However, San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said authorities don't know if he is connected to any of the region's wildfires.
So far, the fires have inflicted the worst damage in San Diego County, where five blazes continued to burn. The largest fire had charred 196,420 acres — about 300 square miles — from Witch Creek to Rancho Santa Fe, destroying 650 homes, businesses and other buildings. Other hard-hit areas included San Bernardino County, where hundreds of homes burned in the mountain resort communities near Lake Arrowhead.
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Associated Press writers Chelsea J. Carter, Jeremiah Marquez, Daisy Nguyen, Robert Jablon and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles, Martha Mendoza in Lake Arrowhead, Jacob Adelman in Santa Clarita, Elliot Spagat, Allison Hoffman and Scott Lindlaw in San Diego, Pauline Arrillaga in Del Mar, Ryan Pearson in Lake Forest and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.

More forced to flee Calif. fires

By ALLISON HOFFMAN and GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writers

SAN DIEGO - Thousands more residents were ordered to evacuate their homes Tuesday, bringing the number of people chased away by the wind-whipped flames that have engulfed Southern California to at least 300,000.

By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned more than 700 homes and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. Tuesday's forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive Santa Ana gusts.

The blazes bedeviled firefighters as walls of flame whipped from mountain passes to the edges of the state's celebrated coastline, spreading so quickly that even hotels serving as temporary shelters for evacuees had to be evacuated.

Wanda Tomkinson, 79, fled the Doubletree hotel in Del Mar with her husband and their Boston Terrier after employees called each room to tell customers they had to leave. The couple, carrying medication, clothes, tax records and a dog bowl, said they were relying on a family friend to take them in.

If not, Tomkinson added, "the Lord'll take care of us."

As the fires spread, most out of control, smaller blazes were merging into larger, more fearsome ones. Evacuations were being announced in one community after another as firefighters found themselves overwhelmed by gale-force Santa Ana winds, some gusting to 70 mph.

As dawn broke, authorities issued a new round of mandatory evacuations to residents in parts of San Diego County. About 3,800 homes were told to evacuate in Wildcat Canyon and Multh Valley, and another 1,800 in North Jamul and Indian Springs.

State officials warned that the total estimate of evacuees in the region could rise, because officials were still working to determine how many people had fled. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said that 274,000 homes and at least 300,000 residents were asked to clear out in San Diego county alone.

At Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, about 40 aircraft that included F-18 fighter jets, C-130 cargo planes and Marine helicopters were evacuated to other bases in California and Arizona.

President Bush declared a federal emergency for seven counties, a move that will speed disaster-relief efforts. He also sent federal disaster officials to California.

"All of us across this nation are concerned for the families who have lost their homes and the many families who have been evacuated from their homes," Bush said Tuesday. "We send the help of the federal government."

The wildfires claimed one life, in San Diego County, and injured 42. At least 16 of the injured were firefighters.

Fire crews and fleeing residents described desperate conditions that were sure to get worse. Temperatures across Southern California were about 10 degrees above average and were expected to approach 100 degrees Tuesday in Orange and San Diego counties.

"We are getting very strong northeast winds. They are very erratic, causing us to modify our procedures," said Capt. Don Camp, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The fires were exploding and shooting embers in all directions, preventing crews from forming traditional fire lines and severely limiting aerial bombardment, he said.

"Lifesaving is our priority. Getting people out from in front of the fire — those have been our priorities," Camp said.

Thousands of residents sought shelter at fairgrounds, schools and community centers. The largest gathering was at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, where up to 10,000 evacuees anxiously watched the stadium's television sets, hoping for a glimpse of their neighborhood on the local news. Sanders pleaded for donations of blankets, cots, pillows and food for the people staying there, and officials said more people were expected to arrive Tuesday.

San Diego County was ablaze from its rural north to its border region with Mexico, where the wildfires that started Sunday claimed their only fatality to date: Thomas Varshock, 52, of Tecate, a town on the U.S. side of the border southeast of San Diego. His body was found Sunday afternoon, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office said, although no other details were released.

At least 250,000 in San Diego alone were told to leave. Public schools were closed, as were campuses at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University.

In the northern part of the county, 500 homes and 100 businesses had been destroyed as a wildfire exploded to 145,000 acres and marched toward the Pacific Coast enclave of Del Mar, forcing a partial evacuation.

The scope of the infernos was immense and was reminiscent of the blazes that tore through Southern California four years ago this month, killing 22 and destroying 3,640 homes.

The fires have been made worse by fierce Santa Ana winds. The winds — which sweep through Southern California's canyons in fall and winter — are stronger than normal, turning already parched scrubland into tinder. They generated walls of flame that bore down on housing developments in a wide swath.

Homes have burned from the beaches of Malibu to the mountain retreats east of Los Angeles and south through Orange and San Diego counties to Mexico.

East of Los Angeles, a two-front fire destroyed at least 160 homes in the Lake Arrowhead area, the same mountain resort community where hundreds of homes were lost four years earlier.

One of the blazes, near Green Valley Lake, was so intense that firefighters were forced to pull back. It jumped Highway 18 and was headed toward the community of Running Springs, said Steve Lowe, a fire information officer with the San Bernardino National Forest.

Touring an evacuee camp at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to do everything in his power to assist the firefighting effort and help those who have lost their homes.

"I will be relentless all the way through this," Schwarzenegger said.

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Associated Press writers Chelsea J. Carter, Jeremiah Marquez, Daisy Nguyen and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles, Martha Mendoza in Lake Arrowhead, Jacob Adelman in Santa Clarita, Elliot Spagat and Scott Lindlaw in San Diego, Pauline Arrillaga in Del Mar and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.