California proclaims the State of emergency

Following the fires of unprecedented scale that set seven counties south of the State ablaze between October 21 and 25, 2007, the federal government hasdeclared the state of extreme emergency in California which is labelled disaster zone.

The operation designed to evacuate the population touched 560 000 inhabitants. The toll is quite heavy with 12 killed, 45 injured, and 2000 homes totally destroyed and 166 000 hectares burnt out.
The damage costs amount to more than a billion USD according to some estimates. Meteorologists attribute the scale of the disaster to the combination of several factors: high temperatures (32°C), drought and desert wind gusting at more than 90 Km per hour.