California fire victims find long path to recovery
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RAMONA, California  - Sifting through the ash-covered rubble where her family's home stood one week ago, Nicole Booth combs the scorched remains of a life left behind in the wildfires that blanketed this Southern California town.
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A measure of normalcy began to return to this resort community Thursday, even as crews battled an unpredictable mountain wildfire for a fifth day. Sunbathers ventured to some beaches, and the smoke lurking in the mountains largely cleared.
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RAMONA, California  - Cooler, calmer weather helped firefighters gain the upper hand over seven remaining wildfires in Southern California on Sunday as residents sought clean water, food, and help rebuilding their lost homes.
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Veterans of earlier fires are sharing practical lessons on recovery and rebuilding.
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FALLBROOK, California  - Cool weather and light winds helped thousands of firefighters beat back Southern California wildfires on Saturday as residents ventured through charred landscapes to see if their homes were still standing.
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Firefighters Sunday hoped to hold on to the strong gains they made against Southern California blazes, despite a forecast of warmer, drier weather and a continuing threat to some homes.
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By Garth Stapley, The Modesto Bee, Calif.  Sep. 23--Tending to an ugly car wreck and a house fire on a late-summer day kept volunteer firefighter Chris Ott from working on a harvester at the family farm west of Modesto.
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Favorable weather and firefighter reinforcements have helped ease the fire danger in parts of Southern California, but the human toll from the disaster was still coming to light.
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As the anniversary of a fire that killed 100 people approaches, survivors say they feel forgotten.
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Firefighters gained the upper hand on nearly all of the California wildfires on Thursday as winds died down after five days battling 20 fires from the mountains north of Los Angeles down to the Mexican border.
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President Bush flew to fire-ravaged California Thursday with promises of federal help, supportive words for those who've lost home and businesses and thanks to overworked firefighters.
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NEW YORK  - Firefighters and other  first-responders to disasters often face both immediate and  long-term psychological effects, researchers report, but early  symptoms may help identify those at greatest risk of lasting  problems.
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By Christina Almeida THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  OJAI -- Teams of firefighters hiked into the wilderness Monday to fight a stubborn, two-week-old wildfire by hand that scorched more than 125 square miles of chaparral and timber along the Los Angeles- Ventura County line.
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California wildfires that have destroyed 1,300 homes and forced the evacuation of 500,000 people raged into a fifth day on Thursday, but firefighters seized on a break in the weather to largely halt the march of destruction.
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With professional firefighters stretched to the breaking point across California, many neighbors throughout the state were left to their own devices this past week.
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By Gillian Flaccus Associated Press  RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- A blaze that killed five federal firefighters last year has emboldened those who question the cost of saving the ever expanding number of homes on the fringe of wilderness.
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In the wake of a Charleston, S.C., blaze that claimed nine lives, a community struggles to make sense of its loss.