Blessings Baba,
I sight the point about Mother Nature and Father Time and I think that it is worth noting the role that humans are thought to have played in this situation. It seems that this is a specific example of humans trying to control a natural phenomenon, in this case fire. The result is Mother Nature demonstrating that her Powers are beyond human control. Humans should take such examples to heart. She will alter her winds and allow for the fires to die when she sees fit.
Also worth noting, is that this is an opportunity for Africans born in Amerikkka to see how the Federal government responds to this as compared to Katrina. As Bush said, ones and ones "care deeply about" the people of Southern California. And as Kanye said.......
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At least two of the wildfires that have devastated southern California may have been deliberately set by arsonists, police believe.

Officers identified two suspects yesterday, shooting and killing one of them after a high-speed chase into the foothills near San Bernardino, southern California.

The 27-year-old man was spotted behaving suspiciously in the scrub behind near California State University, San Bernardino before he fled from police and jumped into a car. He tried to ram police vehicles twice, prompting officers to open fire. He was killed in the second volley of shots.

A second man was arrested in Hesperia, also in San Bernardino county, on suspicion of setting a brush fire.

In Orange County, police say they are certain that a fire that destroyed nine homes was man-made. Jim Amormino, of the Orange County Sheriff's Department, said: "It's definitely arson and it's been deemed a crime scene." Investigators from the FBI were called in to inspect three different ignition points.

Another blaze, in Temecula, is also being treated as suspicious, according to the Los Angeles Times. At least three of the 12 fires have been blamed on sparks from fallen power lines.

President Bush, who is scheduled to tour the fire-ravaged area today, formally declared California a disaster zone yesterday. The measure expands on his announcement of federal aid on Tuesday, and paves the way for more federal funds to boost the relief effort.

“Most importantly, I want the people in southern California to know that Americans all across this land care deeply about them,” the President said.

Easing winds offered Californian fire fighters some respite today as they battled to contain blazes that have killed at least three and caused more than a billion dollars in property damage.

Some 1,700 buildings have been destroyed in the 18 wildfires that have erupted since Sunday, forcing about half a million people to flee their homes and scorching 172,000 hectares (426,000 acres) of tinder-dry countryside stretching from celebrity-studded Malibu to beyond the Mexican border.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Governor, said that three people were killed and 40 injured in the fires, the worst to hit California since devastating 2003 blazes which claimed 22 lives.

The fast-spreading infernos were fanned by powerful desert winds gusting across the region towards the ocean. The winds began to die down on Wednesday, and increased coastal humidity early Thursday enabled fire fighters to make great strides in containing three of the five biggest blazes.

So far 1,664 structures, including 1,436 homes, have been destroyed while a further 25,000 buildings remained threatened, Schwarzenegger said.

"The wind stopped blowing and that made our lives a lot easier,” said a Los Angeles County Fire Department official tackling the Buckweed fire, which charred 15,000 hectares before it was contained on Wednesday night.

The two biggest California fires, covering around 108,000 hectares of San Diego County, were both only 10 per cent contained.

Some 8,900 fire fighters - including 2,600 prison inmates trained to tackle fires - are battling the flames supported by 90 fire-fighting aircraft, including a DC-10, 25 air tankers and 40 helicopters.

Schwarzenegger, who described the destruction as “terrible and tragic,” paid tribute to the weary fire fighters. “They are really extraordinary, they are working 24 hours a day, around-the-clock. In fact many of them have been working 36 or 48 hours without stopping,” he said.

Lesley Kirk, a spokeswoman for San Diego County, told Agence France Presse that the total cost of fire damage had exceeded $1 billion dollars and was expected to go higher.

The bulk of the hundreds of thousands of evacuations have taken place in San Diego. Some 318,000 households had been ordered to evacuate. The number of displaced people in the area is estimated to be 500,000.

A spokeswoman from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said officials expected the numbers of displaced people to be “significantly higher” than 500,000 but would not give an estimate.

By late Wednesday, 5,000 evacuees remained in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, down from 12,000 who had spent the night at the site on Tuesday.

Some evacuees were allowed to return to their destroyed homes in order to retrieve possessions. In the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo, where more than 600 homes were destroyed, Mark Davis returned to find a charred ruin. “We kind of thought when we left it did not have much of a chance,” said Mr Davis, who fled his home of 28 years on Monday after awaking to smoke and flames outside.

Mr Schwarzenegger pledged support to help families and home-owners rebuild their shattered lives. “It is a tragedy to think about people saving up all of their lives and working hard, they buy a home and become part of the American dream and lose it within an hour,” he said.

Malibu’s evacuees were given the green light to return home as officials confirmed that a 1,800 hectare blaze near the Pacific Ocean seaside enclave had been snuffed out.

A spokesman for the Mexico consulate in San Diego meanwhile confirmed six people had been injured, one seriously, after becoming trapped in a wildfire while trying to cross the border into California early Monday.

(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2737976.ece)