Southern California's raging wildfires turned into "an all-consuming blaze" about 112km east of Los Angeles on Wednesday as walls of flames as high as 91m turned the popular mountain top resort of Lake Arrowhead into a tinderbox.
As darkness fell over the San Bernardino mountains, about 250 homes were reported destroyed in Lake Arrowhead and the town, which had been evacuated the day before, was surrounded by fire on three sides with several adjoining towns also threatened.
At risk in Lake Arrowhead and surrounding mountaintop communities was US$7.2 billion in residential property and almost US$1 billion in commercial properties, officials said.
"It looks like the moon. There is nothing there. What used to be trees and houses is gone ... total devastation," one firefighter told local television station KNBC.
California Forestry Department official Tom O'Keefe called the situation a nightmare and an "all consuming blaze" that veteran firefighters have seldom, if ever, encountered. The flames shot even higher than the area's majestic 46m high evergreen trees.
Meanwhile, officials reported the death of the first firefighter battling nine major and eight smaller offshoots that have turned Southern California into a disaster area.
The fireman, believed assigned to firefighting in San Diego County from the San Francisco Bay, died while fighting a blaze outside the historic gold mining town of Julian. Three colleagues were also injured, including at least one with severe burns.
Officials said that as of Wednesday night there were 18 confirmed deaths in Southern California, two in adjoining areas in Mexico and that a total of 2,427 homes were destroyed along with 250,000 hectares.
Close to 13,000 firefighters, many of them bone weary from days without rest, were battling hot spots that deceptively smoldered quietly for hours only to roar back up, fueled by sudden wind changes.
A battalion of about 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton north of San Diego were being trained to enter the firefighting battle today as California officials reached out to neighboring states and the federal government for help.
The massive San Bernardino firestorm chased more than 70,000 residents off the mountain late Tuesday. Firefighters believed that they had routed the blaze from populated areas by lighting backfires but as the Lake Arrowhead fire proved, they were wrong.
Meanwhile, fire crews in Los Angeles County waged an intense battle against a 40,000-hectare blaze that sprang up ahead of strengthening ocean gusts on Wednesday afternoon and leapt across Interstate 5, a major Southern California artery, to make a run for a neighborhood of newly built homes.
The firefighting shut down Interstate 5 for about 2 1/2 hours as 16m-high flames came within feet of homes in the Stevenson Ranch section of northern Los Angeles County, and police ordered some residents to evacuate quickly.
California fire officials said that the wildfires they are fighting could be on the verge of taking an "apocalyptic" turn if they spread to "a dead line" of diseased and highly flammable trees in the San Bernardino Mountains, which is what might have happened.
The fires have blackened an area nearly the size of the US state of Rhode Island over the course of a week and incinerated 2,000 homes, destroying entire suburban neighborhoods in hours.
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