As the state drew some criticism Wednesday for its response to this week's devastating fires in Southern California, fire officials charged with mapping new strategies following the firestorm there in 2003 defended their handling of the latest inferno given the overwhelming high winds and combustible vegetation."These types of fires mean that we are totally at the mercy of Mother Nature," said Mike Warren, fire chief for the city of Corona (Riverside County) and a member of the governor's blue-ribbon panel that investigated the fires four years ago.
Fire crews have been battling as many as 16 fires from Ventura County to the Mexican border since the first one began Sunday. Nearly 430,000 acres have burned, one person has been killed, more than 1,500 homes have been destroyed, and property damage in San Diego County alone is estimated at more than $1 billion.
The grim tally is remarkably similar to the toll from the fires four years ago, which also raged during the last weeks of October following a dry summer and was considered the worst siege of wildfires in California history. Nearly 740,000 acres in five counties burned for more than two weeks, killing 24 people and injuring 246 others, destroying 3,631 structures and causing more than $2 billion in damage.
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