Wind eases; focus shifts to arson

In the fourth day of Southern California's massive battle with wildfires, officials welcomed better weather and shifted their attention to arson investigations and still-threatening blazes in Orange and San Diego counties. One man, who police said was acting suspiciously in brush near California State University, San Bernardino, was shot and killed. Another was arrested after allegedly setting a quickly extinguished fire in Hesperia.

In Riverside County, officials said investigators had determined that the 411-acre Rosa blaze in Temecula was intentionally set. Authorities already had said that a nearly 20,000-acre fire in Orange County was set by an arsonist, and yesterday investigators from the FBI and county agencies were gathered near the intersection of Santiago Canyon and Silverado Canyon Roads.

"It's definitely arson, and it's been deemed a crime scene," said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.

The seven-county toll of destruction continued to rise, with more than 1,300 homes - and more than 1,800 structures - reported lost. More than 437,000 acres - an area equivalent to nearly three-quarters of all Orange County - had burned by early Wednesday afternoon. More than 352,000 households had been ordered evacuated at some point since Sunday, in the largest such effort in state history.

In San Diego County, a fifth evacuee died; he had been moved from a hospice.

With winds diminishing, optimism was cautiously growing. Evacuees were leaving Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego as authorities allowed them to return to some neighborhoods.

"We've definitely turned the corner in the city," San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said yesterday morning.

For some, the abating fires posed confusing choices about when to return home. At Qualcomm, Jeff Jones and his family spent the night in a tent after being evacuated from the Rancho Bernardo community of San Diego. He had being calling neighbors to see whether it was safe to return. Finally he said, "To heck with this place. It's nice, but I want to go home."

The greatest hope came from weather reports predicting that the most extreme Santa Ana winds - peaking at 60 to 80 mph in recent days - largely would disappear. By today, temperatures were expected to drop as much as 15 degrees in some places, and the severely low humidity should ease.

"The high-pressure system is going to move far enough to the east, where it will turn off the Santa Ana spigot," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "Up to now, the firefighters have been trying to just stay in front of these fires, doing the best they can. But they'll really be able to fight back against these fires by this weekend."

The tally of losses was far from complete, but in San Diego County alone damages were expected to exceed $1 billion, said Ron Lane, the county's director of emergency services.

Even as the worst of the fires subsided in some areas, new concerns about flare-ups, arson, looting and the adequacy of the government response were coming to the fore.

By HECTOR BECERRA, TAMI ABDOLLAH and ANDREW BLANKSTEIN

Los Angeles Times