Wildfire makes menacing advance near Los Angeles...

LOS ANGELES – A deadly wildfire that has blackened a wide swath of tinder-dry forest around Los Angeles made another menacing advance Monday, surging toward thousands of suburban homes and a vital mountaintop broadcasting complex while trapping five people inside a smoky canyon.

Fire crews battling the blaze in the Angeles National Forest tried desperately to beat back the flames and prayed for weather conditions to ease. The fire was the largest of at least eight burning across California after days of triple-digit temperatures and low humidity.

The flames scorched 164 square miles of brush and threatened more than 12,000 homes, but the lack of wind kept them from driving explosively into the hearts of the dense suburbs northeast of Los Angeles.

"It's burning everywhere," U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Dianne Cahir said. "When it gets into canyons that haven't burned in numerous years, it takes off. If you have any insight into the good Lord upstairs, put in a request."

Five people who refused to evacuate threatened areas reported they were trapped at a ranch near Gold Creek, Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. A sheriff's helicopter was unable to immediately reach them because of intense fire activity, Whitmore said, but would try after the flames passed.

"What this says is, 'Listen, listen, listen,'" Whitmore said. "Those people were told to get out two days ago, and now we are putting our people in danger to get them out."

Over the weekend, three people who refused to evacuate were burned when they were overrun by flames, including a couple who had sought refuge in a hot tub, authorities said.

Columns of smoke billowed high into the air before dispersing into a gauzy white haze that burned eyes and prompted warnings of unhealthy air throughout the Los Angeles area.

Fire crews set backfires and sprayed fire retardant at Mount Wilson, home to at least 20 television transmission towers, radio and cell phone antennas, and the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. The observatory also houses two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs. It is both a landmark for its historic discoveries and a thriving modern center for astronomy.

The fire about a half-mile away was expected to reach the mountaintop sometime Monday night, said Los Angeles County fire Capt. Mark Whaling. If the flames hit the mountain, cell phone service and TV and radio transmissions would be disrupted, but the extent was unclear.

The blaze killed two firefighters, destroyed at least 21 homes and forced thousands of evacuations. The firefighters died when their truck drove off the side of a road with flames all around them.

People who fled returned to find their homes gone.

"It's the worst roller coaster of my life, and I hate roller coasters," said Adi Ellad, who lost his home in Big Tujunga Canyon over the weekend. "One second I'm crying, one second I'm guilty, the next moment I'm angry, and then I just want to drink tequila and forget."

Ellad left behind a family heirloom Persian rug and a photo album he put together after his father died. "I'm going to have to figure out a new philosophy: how to live without loving stuff," he said.

The blaze in the Los Angeles foothills is the biggest but not most destructive of California's wildfires. Northeast of Sacramento, a wind-driven fire destroyed 60 structures over the weekend, many of them homes in the town of Auburn.

The 275-acre blaze was 50 percent contained Monday afternoon and full containment was expected Tuesday. It wiped out an entire cul-de-sac, leaving only smoldering ruins, a handful of chimneys and burned cars.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the Auburn area, where only charred remnants of homes remained on Monday. At some houses, the only things left on the foundation are metal cabinets and washers and dryers.

"It was embers traveling in the wind, landing on the roofs, landing on attics, getting into that home and burning the home on fire," said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Some mandatory evacuation orders were lifted, but most residents are still being told to stay away while crews work to restore electricity and hose down embers.

"We want to get them back as soon as possible," Berlant said. "These people, a lot of them don't know, 'Is their home still here?' We need to be sure it's safe before we let them go back."

In Yosemite National Park, fire officials planned to start a backfire that would slow progress of a blaze that has consumed nearly 5,000 acres, or 7.8 square miles, since Wednesday. The fire near the communities of Foresta and El Portal is 55 percent contained and 50 homes remain evacuated. The fire began when a prescribed burn near Foresta jumped the lines and whipped out of control.

East of Los Angeles, a 1,000-acre fire threatened 2,000 homes and forced the evacuation of a scenic community of apple orchards in an oak-studded area of San Bernardino County. Brush in the area had not burned for a century, fire officials said. Flames burning like huge candles erupted between rocky slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains and the neat farmhouses below.

With highs topping 100 degrees in some areas and humidity remaining low, the National Weather Service extended a weekend warning of extreme fire conditions in the central and Southern California mountains.

Winds were light, which prevented the flames from roaring at furious speed into towns. In 2003, a wind-whipped blaze tore through neighborhoods in San Diego County, killing 15 people and destroying more than 2,400 homes. That fire burned 273,000 acres — or 427 square miles — the largest in state history.

Overall, more than 2,500 firefighters were on the line. More than 20 helicopters and air tankers were preparing to dump water and retardant over the flames. Two Canadian Super Scoopers, giant craft that can pull thousands of gallons of water from lakes and reservoirs, were expected to join the fight later in the day.

In La Crescenta, where the San Gabriel Mountains descend steeply into the bedroom suburb a dozen miles from downtown Los Angeles, 57-year-old Mary Wilson was experiencing her first wildfire after nine years of living in a canyon.

Her family was evacuated twice in the past five days, she said.

"We saw the flames. My daughter got really scared," she said. But she was philosophical: "You have to surrender to the natural forces when you choose to live up here. It's about nature doing its thing."

Also in La Crescenta, dispatchers overnight activated a "reverse 911" system that sent a recorded evacuation warning to people, but it turned out to be a mistake.

Whaling, the L.A. County fire captain, says the message applied to only a small number of residents closest to the fire but instead a large number got the sleep-shattering calls. He said he does not know how many people were involved in the call.

"They pushed the wrong button," he said.

Terry Crews, an actor promoting the new movie "Gamer" on KTLA-TV, talked about being forced to flee two days ago from his home in Altadena, in the foothills above Pasadena. He saw 40-foot flames, grabbed his dog and fled.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said. "I'm from Michigan. I'm used to tornadoes ... but to see this thing, you feel helpless."

"This is like 'The Ten Commandments,'" he said, referring to the movie. "You go, 'holy God, the end of the world.'"

The two Los Angeles County firefighters who were killed Sunday died on the blaze's northwestern front when their truck crashed on Mount Gleason near Acton.

The victims were fire Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino County, and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones, 35, of Palmdale. Hall was a 26-year veteran, and Quinones had been a county firefighter for eight years.

An animal sanctuary called the Roar Foundation Shambala Preserve, six miles east of Acton, was in the mandatory evacuation zone, but fire officials decided removing the animals would be "a logistical nightmare," said Chris Gallucci, vice president of operations.

"We have 64 big cats, leopards, lions, tigers, cougars. ... The animals are just walking around, not being affected by this at all," Gallucci said. "But if we panic, they panic. But we are not in panic mode yet."

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Fortune helped fuel Kennedy family legacy, agenda

BOSTON – Sen. Edward Kennedy's family fortune not only fueled his brothers' presidential campaigns and his eight terms in the U.S. Senate, it also helped drive the family's liberal legacy and forge Kennedy's lifelong crusade for universal health care.

Just how wealthy was Kennedy when he died Tuesday at the age of 77 after a yearlong battle with brain cancer?

Untangling a family fortune that reaches back to the early days of the past century is murky business, but the annual federal financial disclosure reports Kennedy was required to file provide at least a' partial glimpse into his personal capital.

As a U.S. senator, Kennedy earned a base salary of $165,200 a year, but that just skimmed the surface of his net worth.

On the most recent report in 2008, which includes his own assets and those of his wife and any dependents, Kennedy listed a string of publicly and non-publicly traded trusts and assets. Under the filing rules, Kennedy was only required to place the value of those assets within a range, rather than give an exact dollar amount.

The report placed the net worth of his publicly traded assets somewhere between a low of $15 million and high of $72.6 million.

Just a year earlier, Kennedy reported somewhat rosier totals that placed his publicly traded assets somewhere between a low of $46.9 million and a high of $157 million.

Kennedy has other sources of income, including $1,995,833 in royalties he received from Grand Central Publishing a division of Hachette Group Book, publishers of his memoir True Compass scheduled for release in mid-September. Part of the proceeds will go to charity, including the John F. Kennedy Library.

Separate from his personal wealth was Kennedy's federal campaign account. As of the end of June, Kennedy reported more than $4.5 million in the account.

The main source of Kennedy's wealth was his father and family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy who amassed a fortune in banking, real estate, liquor, films and Wall Street holdings that eventually grew to an estimated $500 million by the 1980s.

A significant portion of that came from Joseph P. Kennedy's decision to buy Chicago's famed Merchandise Mart in 1945 for $12.5 million. Spanning two city blocks and rising 25 stories, the sprawling limestone and terra-cotta mart is so large it has its own zip code and only lost its title as the world's largest building after the Pentagon was built in the 1940s.

The elder Kennedy helped transformed it into a national center for the home furnishings and design industries.

The family retained ownership of the building until 1998 when it was sold — along with other properties including Chicago's Apparel Center which covers about a million square feet — to Vornado Realty Trust of Saddle Brook, N.J. for $625 million in 1998 to take advantage of the then-booming real estate market.

The deal allowed Kennedy heirs to receive a stake in one of the nation's largest real estate investment trusts.

"One of my cousins reminded me of a quote from my grandfather: 'Only a fool waits for top dollar,'" Christopher Kennedy, the son of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy told The Wall Street Journal at the time.

The late John F. Kennedy Jr. also joked about his family's real estate holdings when he visited Chicago in 1996 to mark the launch of George magazine.

"In the 1940s, my family bought the Merchandise Mart. In the 1970s, we bought the Apparel Center. And in the 1960 election, my family bought 20,000 votes," he said, referring to his father's narrow presidential victory.

For Sen. Kennedy, the family fortune only reinforced his determination to expand access to health care.

It was a lesson he learned through his own painful experience.

In a Newsweek column he wrote a month before his death, Kennedy recalled the grueling treatment his son Teddy Jr. had to undergo in 1973 for bone cancer that eventually required the amputation of his right leg.

The experimental clinical trial, which included massive doses of chemotherapy, was free at first, but was deemed a success before some patients had completed their treatments. That forced some families to rely on insurance or pay out of pocket to cover the rest.

While Kennedy had the needed resources, not everyone was so lucky.

"Heartbroken parents pleaded with the doctors: What chance does my child have if I can only afford half of the prescribed treatments? Or two thirds? I've sold everything. I've mortgaged as much as possible," Kennedy wrote. "No parent should suffer that torment. Not in this country."