Fire has burned across nearly 600 square miles, killing two people, destroying more than 1,300 homes and prompting one of the biggest evacuations in California history, from north of Los Angeles, through San Diego to the Mexican border.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the flames were threatening 68,000 more homes.
Krista Flynn, of Rancho Bernardo, who was holed up at QualComm stadium, home of the NFL's San Diego Chargers, said she fled Monday morning with her dog, Emma, when the evacuation order came.
"Somebody came and pounded on my door and said we had to get out. My neighbors said everybody's leaving," she said.
Like thousands of others, Flynn was anxiously watching TVs mounted around the stadium to get the latest news.
"It's scary," she said. You don't know where you're going to go if it (her home) is not there when you get back."
On Tuesday, President Bush declared a federal emergency for seven counties to speed disaster-relief efforts. He also sent Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA Administrator David Paulison to Southern California to get a first-hand view of the disaster.
"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. "We send the help of the federal government."
The fires that broke out up and down the Southern California coast came in all sizes, from the 150-acre "Grass Valley Fire" in San Bernardino county to the 54,000-acre "Ranch Fire" fire west of Los Angeles.
In the Lake Arrowhead area east of Los Angeles, which was hard hit by fire four years ago, flames destroyed at least 160 homes. Another 100 homes were destroyed in the nearby mountain community of Running Springs.
But San Diego County was hardest hit Tuesday, as five separates wildfires raged in the north, in the central regions and along the Mexican border.
The area also claimed one of the two deaths from the wildfires: 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. The other victim was an unidentified civilian who died of burns in a fire in Santa Clarita, in northern Los Angeles County, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Jay Nichols.
In San Diego County, public schools were closed, as were campuses at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University.
The flames raced so quickly through the county that many residents were caught with little time to flee. Many rushed to QualComm stadium. Others sought refuge at fairgrounds, schools and community centers.
At QualComm stadium, more than 10,000 people slept on cots and in tents erected in the corridors and outside in the parking lot around the stadium.
Maura Kizzek came with her husband and two teen-age daughters early Tuesday when they saw television news reports that fire was moving toward their home in La Mesa.
"We just got scared. We haven't lived here very long. We don't know very many people and we don't know our way out of the city," she said.
Kizzek said her family moved to the area recently from Boston.
"We're used to snowstorms and tornadoes, but nothing like this. It's terrifying," she said.
Mark Saldana, 52, of El Cajon said his home was fine. After checking on his grown children, he headed to the stadium to volunteer. He was put to work translating for Spanish-speaking evacuees and distributing food.
"It's an unfortunate situation," he said. "If it's going to burn, it's going to burn. And you can't do anything about it. So I might as well be here and help."
The Creswells, a family of four from Ramona, which was evacuated Sunday evening, were resting around their pickup and small cargo trailer where they had plenty of food and were planning a spaghetti dinner.
Susie Creswell said she had complained for years about her husband Greg's Boy Scout camping trailer, but was glad to have it on hand when the evacuation order came.
"He's an Eagle Scout so he's always prepared," she said. "I'll never complain about this trailer again."
Creswell said the family also had fled a wildfire in 2003."We were much calmer this time," she said.
Unlike the hurricane evacuees stranded in the New Orleans Superdome during hurricane Katrina, the federal government moved swiftly to provide blankets, cots food and water to the first wave of evacuees at QualComm stadium.
"We are well ahead of the requirements and we will be able to make sure that all shelters have sufficient material," said a FEMA spokesman in Washington.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called the federal response "a test of whether FEMA has gotten its act together post-Katrina."
Chertoff and Paulison, flying in from Washington, planned to stop first at the stadium.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also visited the facility Tuesday, pledged to do all that he could to help the firefighting effort and those who lost their homes.
"I will be relentless all the way through this," the governor said.
Schwarzenegger ordered 800 National Guard troops off the U.S.-Mexican border to help firefighters. All San Diego police officers and detectives were ordered to help move people to safety and handle other fire-related emergencies.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said that 274,000 homes had been ordered evacuated on Monday.
At dawn on Tuesday, 3,800 additional homes were ordered evacuated in Wildcat Canyon and Multh Valley, and another 1,800 in North Jamul and Indian Springs.
"It was nuclear winter. It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world," Mitch Mendler, a San Diego firefighter, said as he and his crew stopped at a shopping center parking lot to refill their water truck from a hydrant near a restaurant. "I lost count" of how many homes burned.
The fires have exploding and shooting embers in all directions, preventing crews from forming traditional fire lines and severely limiting aerial bombardment, fire officials said.
"Lifesaving is our priority. Getting people out from in front of the fire — those have been our priorities," said Capt. Don Camp, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The firestorms have come during one of the driest years on record: From Los Angeles to San Diego, the region has received less than one-third of its normal rainfall.
The combination of season, climate and weather conditions driving this week's infernos is unique to Southern California, says Tim Brown, a fire climate and ecosystem specialist.
"This is, indeed, with the Santa Ana (winds), exclusively a Southern California pattern," said Brown, a research professor at the University of Nevada's Desert Research Institute in Reno.
"This is the kind of fire that has the potential to get much worse," said Don Windeler, director of model management for Risk Management Solutions, which gauges and manages disaster potential.
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