US News
Floods and fires mar start of year in US
By DPA
Jan 3, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Los Angeles - If the weather at the start of the new year is an omen, the U.S. is likely to be in for a tough 2006, as residents throughout California battled torrential downpours while wildfires threatened towns in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

Authorities reported four fire-related deaths and one from the California flooding. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the seven California counties and called on the federal disaster agency FEMA to come to California's aid.

'I proclaim a state of emergency because the magnitude of this disaster exceeds the capabilities of the services, personnel, equipment and facilities of these counties,' Schwarzenegger said.

Oklahoma officials on Sunday night ordered the evacuation of dozens of homes on the northeastern edge of Oklahoma City, as prairie fires there threatened to engulf dozens of homes.

The fire was brought under control by Monday morning, but tinder dry conditions and strong winds meant that 35 new fires ignited Monday.

Since November 1, Oklahoma wildfires have covered more than 285,000 acres and destroyed 200 buildings, said Michelle Finch- Walker, a spokeswoman for the state Agriculture Department's forestry division.

'This has been an unprecedented year for fires,' Finch-Walker said. Fire season in Oklahoma usually begins around Feb. 15 and lasts until April 15, but this past year the fires began in June and have worsened, Finch said.

Fires continued to burn out of control in northern and western Texas, where reports said that the two villages of Ringgold and Kokoma, with combined populations of 125, had been razed to the ground. On Monday 58 new fires were reported to have started.

Just across the Texas state line in New Mexico, 170 elderly residents were moved out of two nursing homes in Hobbs on Sunday, and a casino and community college in the town of 29,000 were evacuated.

In California the a series of storms that caused widespread flooding in the north of the state moved south to dump heavy rain on the traditional Rose Bowl parade in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena.

Lavishly costumed participants were forced to cover themselves with plastic sheets and stomp through puddles in the parade, which according to local reports has only been rained on once in the last 18 years.

State officials said they remained on high alert for possible breaches in the 1,760 kilometres of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that protects hundreds of square kilometres from flooding.

The storms had left some 500,000 residents without power over the New Year weekend, causing widespread flooding in the wine country north of San Francisco.