SANTA BARBARA: As many as 23,000 more people faced possible evacuation Saturday as firefighters struggled to get a grip on an out-of-control wildfire raging in southern California.California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency to help release resources to fight the blaze. At least 75 homes have been destroyed and 30,500 people evacuated from the up market town of Santa Barbara following a wind-whipped blaze that has forced firefighters onto the defensive.Authorities widened the scope of possible evacuation areas to include an additional 23,000 people, despite a lull in winds and increased humidity that gave a boost to the firefighting effort later Friday. The rapidly spreading wildfire left vast clouds of smoke across the region following a dramatic escalation overnight that had sent the flames roaring toward the center of the city.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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