Californians return to fire-scarred homes
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Thousands of Californians forced from their neighborhoods by this week's wind-whipped wildfires returned home on Friday, some of them finding their property unscathed amid the destruction and others discovering nothing but blackened rubble.
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(French Gulch, California-AP) Aug. 17, 2004 - Some residents who fled a wildfire in an old California mining town will be allowed back home Tuesday to survey the scorched ruins.
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LOS ANGELES -- When the firestorms of October were finally extinguished and hundreds of thousands of Southern Californians returned to their homes, officials set out to understand how 21 fires erupted in the span of just three days.
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Their homes are in ruin, many have only the clothes they&#39;re wearing, yet those who took a direct hit from hurricane Ivan returned to their neighbourhoods Saturday determined to rebuild.
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The desert winds that stoked a destructive wildfire diminished Monday, easing the threat from flames in this Southern California city where the blaze gutted five homes.
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Weather forecasts raise hopes of some respite from the fires raging across southern California in recent days.
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Right now, thousands of dislocated Southern California homeowners are fretting about the fate of their residences, but the biggest headaches could come months after the wildfires ravaging the area are extinguished.
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About 5,000 Australians who evacuated their houses to avoid being swept away by rising floodwaters were allowed to return home Monday, while others downstream braced for the approaching torrent.
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California again urged customers to conserve power as businesses reopened, after the U.S. Independence Day holiday, on Thursday, the third day of the first big heat wave of the summer to hit the West.
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LOS ANGELES, Oct. 26 -- While residents streamed home from evacuation centers by the thousands in much of Southern California on Friday, firefighters concentrated on the nine blazes still burning the region, including an Orange County arson fire creeping toward a canyon filled with houses.
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Residents of this historic mining town surveyed the scorched ruins of their community Monday, two days after a wildfire destroyed 22 houses and two commercial buildings while blackening more than 9,000 acres in northern California.
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AVALON, Calif. - Before it was stopped at the edge of town, the wildfire  that rampaged across Santa Catalina Island burned a hilltop house so badly  all that was left was two brick chimneys.  Nearby, a bathtub and washing machine sat in a pile of ash.
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Wildfires that have charred a huge swath of California and destroyed 1,300 homes burned into the night on Wednesday, but firefighters said a break in the weather had given them a chance to go on the offensive.
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Residents trickled back into town Saturday after a fire at a hazardous materials plant, relieved that there were no serious injuries or damage to their homes while they were forced out for two nights.
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Firefighters hoped for high winds to abate on Tuesday, enabling them to start containing the fast-moving fires that have engulfed a swath of Southern California, claimed some 700 homes and sent thousands fleeing.
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Six families moved back into their houses Sunday after a pre-dawn chemical plant explosion four days earlier drove them and hundreds of other residents from their homes.
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Flames and smoke drove hundreds of people from a Southern California mobile home park, and it might not reopen for months -- if ever, a routed resident said.