Sep 2, 2009, 18:29 GMT
Los Angeles - Cooler weather helped an army of firefighters gain the upper hand on the largest and most dangerous fire of the year in California Wednesday.
Fire officials said that the Station Fire to the north east of Los Angeles was 22 per cent contained, compared to just 5-per-cent containment a day earlier.
Incident commanders said the fire had burnt over 56,000 hectares and was being fought by more than 4,100 personnel. Many were stationed at the thousands of homes still threatened by the blaze, while others lit backfires to starve the fire of fuel, and constructed huge bulldozer lines to prevent the fire from spreading.
The fire is believed to be the biggest in Los Angeles County in over 100 years and has destroyed at least 62 homes. Two firefighters have been killed and 14 injured. But incident commander Mike Diedrich sounded hopeful that the massive firefighting effort was succeeding.
'The crews are making excellent progress based on the improved weather conditions,' he said early Wednesday. However, he warned that a change in wind conditions could easily lead to a flare up.
The success in beating back the blaze meant that evacuation orders were lifted for thousands of residents.
The danger to Mt Wilson, which houses a historic observatory as well as communications towers that serve Los Angeles television and cellphone providers, also receded as fire crews constructed firelines around the site and coated structures with fire retardant gel and foam.
'We are going to burn, cut, foam and gel. And if that doesn't work, we're going to pray,' said Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Martin. 'This place is worth a lot, but it's not worth dying for.'
Experts said that the fire's damage would have been much worse had it erupted during peak fire season when strong Santa Ana winds, gusting at 100 kilometers per hour, could fan the flames into an unstoppable inferno.
'This could have been like the conflagration of the century with the Santa Anas,' Bill Paziert, a NASA meteorologist, told the Los Angeles Times.
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