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Wildfire threatens Los Angeles
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-08-30 14:09

Wildfire threatens Los Angeles
An unknown structure burns during the Station Fire in the Big Tujunga canyon area of Los Angeles, California August 29, 2009.[Agencies]

Fire fighters from other cities rushed to the mountains on Saturday, as a raging fire threatened hundreds of foothill houses.

"This is a very dangerous situation that we are in right now," said US Forest Service fire boss Mike Dietrich.

Low humidity, high temperature and heavy, thick brush caused the fire to push towards foothill homes above the JPL.

"If there was one silver lining, there are no Santa Ana winds predicted at this point," Dietrich said.

"But this is an extremely steep, 100 percent growth, and the fuel conditions are such that it hasn't burned in 60 years and the brush is between 20-30 feet tall," he warned.

The fire, which broke out about 3:20 pm Wednesday, was just five-percent contained as of 6 a.m. on Saturday. After burning 20,000 acres, the fire was threatening hundreds of thousands of acres.

One fire fighter has been injured, but officials could not provide any further details.

Loss of communications facilities there would cripple fire and police departments across Southern California, which not only use mountaintop transmitters to communicate in the field but in many cases relay signals from other mountaintop sites back to dispatch centers via microwave facilities that are now threatened.

Nearly all of the 22 Los Angeles TV stations transmit from those sites, and more than two-thirds of the region's FM radio stations broadcast from there as well.

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