SoCal wildfire surges in size, threatens thousands

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A wildfire in the mountains above Los Angeles has surged in every direction, going in a single day from a modest threat to a danger to some 10,000 homes.

The blaze nearly tripled in size in triple-digit heat Saturday, leaving three people burned, destroying at least three homes and forcing the evacuation of 1,000 homes and an untold number of people.

A slight drop in temperatures and an influx of fire crews from around the state were expected to bring some relief Sunday.

Mandatory evacuations were in effect for neighborhoods in Altadena, Glendale, Pasadena, La Crescenta and Big Tujunga Canyon.
The flames crept down the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains despite mild winds blowing predominantly in the other direction.

"Today what happened is what I call the perfect storm of fuels, weather, and topography coming together," said Captain Mike Dietrich, the incident commander for the U.S. Forest Service. "Essentially the fire burned at will; it went where it wanted to when it wanted to."

Dietrich said he had never seen a fire grow so quickly without powerful Santa Ana winds to push it.

At least three homes deep in the Angeles National Forest were destroyed, and firefighters were searching for others, Dietrich said.

Evacuation centers were set up at two high schools and an elementary school in the area.
The fire was the largest and most dangerous of several burning around southern and central California and in Yosemite National Park.

The fire especially grew to the north and west, bringing new concerns for the areas near Acton and Santa Clarita.

More than 31 square miles of dry forest was scorched by the fire. It was only 5 percent contained.

At least three people were burned in the evacuation areas and airlifted to local hospitals, Dietrich said. He had no further details on their injuries.

Air crews waged a fierce battle against the southeast corner of the fire, burning dangerously close to canyon homes. Spotter planes and tankers dove well below ridge then pulled up dramatically over neighborhoods.
The fire was burning in steep wooded hills next to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in northern Pasadena.

In La Vina, a gated community of luxury homes in the Altadena area, a small group of residents stood at the end of a cul-de-sac on the lip of a canyon and watched aircraft battle flames trying to cross the ridge on the far side.

At one point, the flying circus of relatively small propellor-driven tankers gave way to the sight of a giant DC-10 jumbo jet unleashing a rain of red retardant.

"We see a drop, we give a big cheer," said Gary Blackwood, who works on telescope technology at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We've watched it now for two days hop one ridge at a time and now it's like we're the next ridge."

A major goal was to keep the fire from spreading up Mount Wilson, where many of the region's broadcast and communications antennas and the historic Mount Wilson Observatory are located, officials said.
A second fire in the Angeles National Forest was burning several miles to the east in a canyon above the city of Azusa. The 3.4-square-mile blaze, which started Tuesday afternoon, was 95 percent contained Saturday. No homes were threatened, and full containment was expected by Monday.

A wildfire on the Palos Verdes Peninsula on the south Los Angeles County coast was 100 percent contained Saturday afternoon, according to county fire officials.

Southeast of Los Angeles in Riverside County, a 3 1/2-square-mile fire in a rural area of the San Bernardino National Forest was 30 percent contained as it burned in steep, rocky terrain in Beeb Canyon. No structures were threatened.

To the north, in the state's coastal midsection, a 9.4-square-mile fire threatening Pinnacles National Monument kept 100 homes under evacuation orders near the Monterey County town of Soledad. The blaze, 60 percent contained, was started by agricultural fireworks used to scare animals away from crops. The fire destroyed one home.

A state of emergency was declared Saturday for Mariposa County, where a nearly 5.5-square-mile fire burned in Yosemite National Park. The blaze was 30 percent contained, park officials said.

Park officials closed a campground and a portion of Highway 120, anticipating that the fire would spread north toward Tioga Road, the highest elevation route through the Sierra. The number of firefighters was expected to double over the weekend to 1,000.

About 100 residents from the town of El Portal were under evacuation orders, said Brad Aborn, chairman of Mariposa's Board of Supervisors. He said the remainder of the town, an estimated 75 people, were evacuated Saturday morning.

7 found slain at Ga. mobile home, 2 badly hurt

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) - Seven people were found slain and two critically injured Saturday at a mobile home park built on the grounds of a historic plantation in southeastern Georgia, police said.

Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering called it the worst mass slaying in his 25 years of police work in this coastal Georgia county. He wouldn't say how the victims died.

"This is a record for us. We've never had such an incident with so many victims," Doering told reporters. "It's not a scene that I would want anybody to see."

A family member called 911 at about 8 a.m. Saturday after discovering the bodies inside a dingy mobile home shaded by large, moss-draped oaks with an old boat in the front yard.

At an afternoon news conference, Doering declined to say whether police believe the killer was among the dead or remained at large. No arrests had been made.

Investigators were talking to neighbors about whether they saw or heard anything unusual, but hadn't found any witnesses to the crime. Police hadn't interviewed the survivors, who remained in critical condition Saturday night.

"I assume they know something, but we have not been able to speak to them," the chief said.

All seven bodies were tentatively identified by Saturday evening. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was scheduled to perform autopsies Sunday.

Doering said families of the victims had been notified, but he would not release any names or ages before receiving the autopsy results.

"I really don't know the ages," Doering said. "There were some older-aged victims and we believe there were some in their teens."

Located a few miles north of the port city of Brunswick, the mobile home park consists of about 100 spaces and is nestled among centuries-old live oak trees near the center of New Hope Plantation, according to the plantation's Web site.

The 1,100 acre tract is all that remains of a Crown grant made in 1763 to Henry Laurens, who later succeeded John Hancock as president of the Continental Congress in 1777.

Laurens obtained control of the South Altamaha river lands and named it New Hope Plantation, according to the plantation's Web site.

Lisa Vizcaino, who has lived at New Hope for three years, said the management works hard to keep troublemakers out of the mobile home park and that it tends to be quiet.

"New Hope isn't rundown or trashy at all," Vizcaino said. "It's the kind of place where you can actually leave your keys in the car and not worry about anything."

Vizcaino said she didn't know the victims and heard nothing unusual when she woke up at 7 a.m. Saturday morning. After word of the slayings spread, she said, the park was quieter than usual.

"Everybody had pretty much stayed in their houses," Vizcaino said. "Normally you would see kids outside, but everybody's been pretty much on lockdown."

Calif. firefighters wage fierce wildfire battles

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A wildfire that exploded in the mountains north of Los Angeles has spread over nearly 8 square miles of bone-dry forest, sent up massive billows of smoke and cast an eerie orange glow against the night sky.

The blaze in the steep San Gabriel Mountains above La Canada Flintridge spread out in all directions Friday, the most active flanks to the north, deeper into the forest and east, said Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea. The fire was creeping slowly toward the city of Altadena, but no homes were immediately threatened Friday evening, Florea said. It was zero percent contained.

A major goal was to keep the fire from spreading up Mount Wilson, where many of the region's broadcast and communications antennas and the historic Mount Wilson Observatory are located, officials said.

Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation notice early Saturday morning for many residents with homes located within a half-square-mile area and on the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains. An evacuation center was set up at La Canada High School.

With hundreds of homes in La Canada Flintridge evacuated, hundreds more residents were packed and ready to move on a moment's notice.

"We're boxed up and ready to go," said La Canada Flintridge resident Steve Buntich, watching helicopters line up to siphon water from a golf course reservoir. He said his wife and children had evacuated to a friend's house for several hours, but had since returned home.

Firefighters made good progress Friday against a fire on the Palos Verdes Peninsula fire that roared to life on the south Los Angeles County coast Thursday night. As many as 1,500 people were forced to flee at the height of the fire, but calm, windless conditions allowed water-dropping helicopters to extinguish much of the fire. It was 90 percent contained, late Friday, officials said. Six homes received minor exterior damage, and the only structures destroyed were an outbuilding and gazebo. No injuries were reported.

Elsewhere in the Angeles National Forest, more than 1,600 firefighters working in 102-degree heat had achieved 85 percent containment of a 3.3-square-mile blaze in a canyon above the city of Azusa. No structures were threatened or damaged

"We're getting a handle on it. It's just taking a little longer than expected," said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Rachel Mailo.

To the north in the state's coastal midsection, a nearly 8-square-mile fire threatening Pinnacles National Monument kept 100 homes under evacuation orders near the Monterey County town of Soledad. The blaze, only 15 percent contained, was started by agricultural fireworks used to scare animals away from crops.

In the southern part of Monterey County, firefighters had 100 percent containment of a 5 1/4-square-mile fire that had threatened 20 ranch homes.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday in Los Angeles and Monterey counties.

"It's fire season, clearly," he said. "There's tremendous amount of heat all over the state."

A nearly 3 1/2-square-mile fire in Yosemite National Park was 10 percent contained, said staff member Erik Skinrud.

The Mariposa County Sheriff's Office ordered guests and staff at the Yosemite View Lodge, just outside the park's western gate, to evacuate Friday afternoon due to the fire. People without lodging were offered beds in a shelter in Mariposa staffed by the Red Cross.

Residents of the nearby community of El Portal watched as water-dropping helicopters refilled from the Merced River.

Park spokeswoman Kari Cobb said officials closed a campground and a portion of Highway 120, anticipating that the fire would spread north toward Tioga Road, the highest elevation route through the Sierra. The number of firefighters was expected to double over the weekend to 1,000.

Southeast of Los Angeles in Riverside County, a 1 1/2-square-mile fire in the San Bernardino National Forest was 5 percent contained. Temperatures reached 106 degrees in the region.

In San Diego County, three fires totaling 1,000 acres burned on the Camp Pendleton Marine base but posed no threat to buildings, Cpl. Gabriela Gonzalez said.

Obama to honor Sen. Kennedy at funeral Mass

BOSTON (AP) - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, oft-summoned to remember departed members of his famous political family, was himself the subject of a eulogy President Barack Obama was delivering at a funeral expected to draw mourners from across the political spectrum and stations of life.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who died Tuesday at age 77 from brain cancer, was being sent off in high fashion Saturday with a Roman Catholic Mass presided over by no fewer than seven priests, 11 pallbearers and 29 honorary pallbearers.

Tenor Placido Domingo was to sing, accompanied by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Joining Obama and nearly 1,500 other invitees at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica were former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, as well as 58 current members of the U.S. Senate, 21 former members and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, once an aide to Kennedy.

The day's somber mood was matched by the gloomy weather. Rain and unseasonable cold enveloped the area as tropical depression Danny moved up the East Coast.

White House aides were mum about the eulogy the president would offer, but Obama was expected to focus on the impact Kennedy had on American life since first being elected in 1962.

His 47-year career spanned the assassinations of his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy; the civil rights era and Apollo moon landings; and battles over health, education and immigration; as well as the country's election of Obama, its first black president, who was born roughly 18 months before Kennedy took office.

Obama, dressed in a dark suit and overcoat, left his hotel early Saturday to walk in a drizzling rain across the street to the Fairmont Copley Plaza for a 10-minute private visit with Kennedy's widow, Vicki.

The hotel has been frequented by the Kennedys for generations, and the halls on one floor are lined with family pictures.

After the meeting, Obama, hands in pockets, ignored a shouted question about the contents of his eulogy.

A military honor guard has stood by Kennedy's casket since it arrived at his brother's presidential library Thursday. A rotation of friends, former staffers and others Kennedy touched - including the parents of a murdered lifeguard, the family of an Iraq war soldier and the widow of a Sept. 11 terror victim - has maintained a 24-hour vigil.

On Friday, Kennedy was remembered at a bipartisan memorial service whose speakers included Sens. John McCain and John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, JFK's daughter.

"Now Teddy has become a part of history," Schlossberg said, "and we are the ones who will have to do all the things he would have done, for us, for each other and for our country."

The invitation-only funeral audience of world leaders and commoners alike evoked the funerals for Kennedy's brothers. It was at RFK's rites in 1968 that the senator not only emerged as family patriarch, but also the person to deliver the final word on lives cut short.

He memorialized Robert Kennedy by saying, "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

Following the service, Kennedy's body was being flown to Andrews Air Force Base, which also received JFK's body after his 1963 assassination, before being driven to the U.S. Capitol then along the National Mall and into Arlington Cemetery.

There, as evening falls, he was to be buried on a hillside grave site near his two slain brothers.

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NYC to track its building inspectors with GPS

NEW YORK (AP) - New York City will track its hundreds of building inspectors with GPS technology to make sure they are actually doing the inspections they report, the Department of Buildings said Friday.

The new scrutiny comes after an inspector was charged last year with faking a report that he had inspected a crane days before it collapsed and killed seven people.

Electrical, construction, elevator, crane and other inspectors will now have GPS tracking on their mobile phones so that department heads can follow their movements in real time through a web-based program.
Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said the system will "ensure inspectors reach their assigned locations and are held accountable for their important work."

Last year city crane inspector Edward Marquette was indicted on criminal charges of tampering with public records. According to the indictment, he indicated on a Department of Buildings inspection sheet that he had inspected a construction site on East 51st Street on March 4, 2008, when in fact he had not.

The crane collapsed 11 days later. Officials said it was unlikely an inspection would have prevented the tragedy, but the incident sparked an agency-wide examination of its inspection processes.

The Manhattan district attorney also said Marquette also falsified inspection reports for cranes at other sites.

Marquette pleaded not guilty. The case is pending.

For years, other states and municipalities have tracked inspectors and employees using similar technology. Chicago follows its fire and buildings inspectors, and some state building and engineering inspectors in Massachusetts were suspended when they resisted the mandate a few years ago.

The union representing most of the New York City building department's inspectors said members were disappointed by the announcement Friday but did not threaten to oppose the monitoring system.

"It seems no matter how hard these guys try, management won't let them move past the transgressions of the past," said Joseph Corso, president of Local 211 of the International Union of Operating Engineers.

The New York City system will not only allow unit heads to track inspectors, but will also store the daily routes of inspectors in a database.

The city said GPS technology will also enable officials to identify the closest inspectors to assign to emergency incidents.

In the last fiscal year, buildings department inspectors logged more than 445,000 inspections.

The tracking will begin Monday with the first group of inspectors; all 379 will be monitored by the end of September, the city said.

Kidnapped woman hidden in CA backyard for 18 years

PLACERVILLE, Calif. (AP) - A girl snatched on her way to school was hidden for nearly two decades behind a series of fences, sheds and tents, even giving birth to her suspected abductor's children in the suburban backyard compound less than 200 miles from her childhood home.

Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was 11 when she was abducted from a South Lake Tahoe street in 1991, was taken directly to the house and sheltered from the world in a secret, leafy backyard, investigators said Thursday.

Her abductor, investigators said, raped her and fathered two children with her, the first when Jaycee was about 14. Those girls, now 11 and 15, also were kept hidden away in the backyard compound behind the Antioch home.

"None of the children have ever been to school, they've never been to a doctor," El Dorado County Undersheriff Fred Kollar said. "They were kept in complete isolation in this compound."

Even a parole agent who visited 58-year-old Phillip Garrido's home didn't have an inkling about the hidden compound, Kollar said. Garrido is a registered sex offender on federal parole for rape and kidnapping convictions.

"The way the house is set up, the way the backyard is set up, you could walk through the backyard, walk through the house, and never know," Kollar said.

"He's had her for 18 years. Now, it's our turn. I have no compassion for this guy," he said Friday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America."

But neighbors said there were clues even before a parole agent on Wednesday noticed Dugard, now 29, who accompanied Garrido, his wife and the children to a parole office.

Neighbor Diane Doty said she could see the tents and often heard children playing in the backyard, the corner of which abuts her own backyard. She said she even suspected the children lived in the tents, but her husband said she should leave the family alone.

"I asked my husband, 'Why is he living in tents?'" she said. "And he said, 'Maybe that is how they like to live.'"

Dugard's stepfather, who witnessed her abduction and was a longtime suspect in the case, said he was overwhelmed by the news after doing everything he could to help find her.

"It broke my marriage up. I've gone through hell, I mean I'm a suspect up until yesterday," a tearful Carl Probyn, 60, told The Associated Press at his home in Orange, Calif.

Carl Probyn told CBS'"Early Show" Friday morning that he spoke to his wife late Thursday after she reunited with Dugard and everyone was "doing great."

"I think they're pretty happy," he said, noting six people were together at the reunion - Jaycee Dugard, her two daughters, her sister, mother and another relative.

In interviews on NBC, ABC and CBS Friday morning, Probyn said the most surprising thing to his wife was that Jaycee looks very young, almost like she did when she taken.

Probyn also said Dugard felt terribly guilty for bonding with her captor, and her family felt troubled by learning the facts of how she was forced to live for 18 years.

Garrido, 58, is being held for investigation of various kidnapping and sex charges. Authorities said his 54-year-old wife, Nancy Garrido, was with him during the kidnapping in South Lake Tahoe and she also has been arrested.

The case broke after Garrido was spotted Tuesday with two children as he tried to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature. Officers said he was acting suspiciously toward the children. They questioned him and did a background check, determined that he was a parolee and informed his parole officer.

Garrido was ordered to appear for a parole meeting and arrived Wednesday with Dugard, who identified herself as "Allissa," his wife, and two children. During questioning, corrections officials said he admitted to kidnapping Dugard.

Investigators said he did not yet have an attorney.

Dugard was reunited Thursday with her mother as her family learned that their blue-eyed, blonde ponytailed little girl had spent most of her life in captivity. Police said they had no evidence that she had ever reached out to anyone beyond the compound walls.

"She was in good health, but living in a backyard for the past 18 years does take its toll," Kollar said.

The backyard compound had electricity from extension cords and a rudimentary outhouse and shower, "as if you were camping," Kollar said.

Authorities said they do not know if Garrido also abused his daughters, but they are investigating.

Garrido's compound was located in Antioch, a city of 100,000 about 170 miles from the Dugard family home in South Lake Tahoe.

People who knew Garrido said he became increasingly fanatic about his religious beliefs in recent years, sometimes breaking out into song and claiming that God spoke to him through a box.

"In the last couple years he started getting into this strange religious stuff. We kind of felt sorry for him," said Tim Allen, president of East County Glass and Window Inc. in Pittsburg, Calif., who bought business cards and letterhead from Garrido's printing business for the last decade.

Three times in recent years, Garrido arrived at Allen's showroom with two "cute little blond girls" in tow, he said.

In April 2008, Garrido registered a corporation called Gods Desire at his home address, according to the California Secretary of State. During recent visits to the showroom, Garrido would talk about quitting the printing business to preach full time and gave the impression he was setting up a church, Allen said.

"He rambled. It made no sense," he said.

In a blog that appears to have been maintained by Garrido, he wrote that he had hired a private investigator to verify his ability to speak to people using only his mind. In an "affadavit" posted there, he said he had the ability to "control sound with my mind and have developed a device for others to witness this phenomena."

Garrido gave a rambling, sometimes incoherent phone interview to KCRA-TV from the El Dorado County jail Thursday in which he said he had not admitted to a kidnapping and that he had turned his life around since the birth of his first daughter 15 years ago.

"I tell you here's the story of what took place at this house, and you're going to be absolutely impressed. It's a disgusting thing that took place from the end to the beginning. But I turned my life completely around," he said.

In addition to kidnapping allegations, court records showed both Garridos were being held for investigation of rape by force, lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and kidnapping someone under 14 with intent to rape. Phillip Garrido also faces allegations of sexual penetration.

The AP, as a matter of policy, avoids identifying victims of alleged sexual abuse by name in its news reports. However, Dugard's disappearance had been known and reported for nearly two decades, making impossible any effort to shield her identity now.

Garrido has a long rap sheet dating back to the 1970s.

He was convicted of kidnapping a 25-year-old woman whom he snatched from a South Lake Tahoe parking lot, handcuffed, tied down and held in a mini-warehouse in Reno, according to a November 1976 story in the Reno Gazette-Journal.

He also has a conviction for rape by force or fear stemming from the same incident, and was paroled from a Nevada state prison in 1988, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In 1991, police believe he was trolling for victims in South Lake Tahoe in a Ford Granada when he snatched Dugard from a bus stop outside her home. The case attracted national attention and was featured on TV's "America's Most Wanted," which broadcast a composite drawing of a suspect seen in the car.

Her stepfather said he saw someone reach out and grab her before the car sped away.

"As soon as I saw the door fly open, the driver's door, I jumped on my mountain bike and I tried to get to the top of the hill but I had no energy," Probyn recalled. "I rode back down and yelled at my neighbor, 911!"

Probyn said his wife, from whom he is separated, was devastated by the kidnapping. He said for 10 years after the crime, she would take a week off work at Christmas and on the anniversary of the abduction and spend the time crying at home.

Jaycee Lee Dugard has retained custody of her children and was staying at a Bay area motel, authorities said.