Los Angeles - A fierce brush fire spread to more than 330
hectares of Griffith Park in Los Angeles Wednesday, in what officials
said was the worst fire in the city limits since 1961.
The fire was one of a series of wild weather events across the
United States, as large areas of several US Midwestern states were
under water. Flooding hit parts of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, and
the National Weather Service issued flood advisories for seven other
states across the Midwest and south.
Also Wednesday, US President George W Bush toured a Kansas town
virtually wiped out by a tornado last week, getting his first look at
devastation in which 10 people died.
In another weather development, the National Hurricane Centre in
Miami named subtropical Storm Andrea the year's first named storm.
The weak, slow-moving storm was about 190 kilometres off the coast of
north-east Florida and south-east Georgia, three weeks before the
official start of hurricane season.
The Los Angeles fire broke out Tuesday afternoon after two days of
near record temperatures and after a drought-ravaged winter that kept
the area's steep canyons unseasonably dry.
By late afternoon Wednesday the fire was 50 per cent contained.
But it had destroyed much of the popular recreation zone, forcing the
evacuation of local landmarks like the Los Angeles Zoo, The Griffith
Observatory, the Greek Theatre and hundreds of upscale homes in the
Los Feliz neighbourhood adjacent to the park. The animals were not
evacuated from the zoo, and essential staff were allowed to stay.
Hundreds of firefighters worked through the night to control the
blaze, the Los Angeles Fire Department's Rick Garcia said. He said
this is the first time in his 30 years with the department that
water-dropping aircraft had been used in the second largest city in
the US. The fire, which may have been started by a homeless man who
fell asleep smoking a cigarette, was described by City Councilman Tom
LaBonge as the city's worst since the Bel Air fire of 1961.
Television pictures showed groups of firefighters huddled under a
bridge for protection as 10-metre-high flames blazed around them.
The 1,800-hectare park between Hollywood and the San Fernando
Valley is crisscrossed with hiking trails and recreational
structures. It was the second major blaze to strike the park this
year as record-low rainfall has raised the risk of brush fires. In
late March, the western edge of the park as well as the Hollywood
sign were threatened by a brush fire that consumed more than 60
hectares.
Up to 18 centimetres of rain had fallen in Missouri and Kansas
since Sunday, CNN reported. Televised images showed fast moving,
muddy waters covering roads, and many residents were prepared to
evacuate.
Missouri Governor Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency.
The Missouri River crested in Saint Joseph, Missouri Tuesday, but
did so earlier than expected sparing residents from more major
flooding, the Kansas City Star newspaper reported. In total five
levees were breached, submerging the town of Big Lake Missouri and
forcing thousands to flee flooding that could approach the record
devastation of 1993, reports said.
In Kansas, officials struggled to deal with the aftermath of the
flooding and the deadly tornado that flattened the town of Greensburg
over the weekend.
'A lot of us have seen the pictures about what happened here and
pictures don't do it justice,' Bush said after touring the Greensburg
area. 'There is a lot of destruction.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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