Firefighters Battle "The Beast" In SoCal

It's a fight to the death with what firefighters call "the beast." And right now "the beast" is winning: Southern California is burning, reports CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric.

Walls of wind-whipped flames consumed hundreds of homes across the tinder-dry region. Since Sunday, the wildfires have burned nearly 400-square miles, an area larger than New York City. Officials now fear as many as 2,000 homes could be lost to the fires. So far more than 500,000 have been asked to evacuate with nearly 10,000 taking shelter at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium.

Fully a quarter of the California coast was ablaze. Flames climbed halfway toward the Nevada line, chewing through chunks of seven counties and devastating numerous communities.

Smaller fires are merging to form giant infernos, creating pillars of smoke that can be seen from space, reports Couric.

The blazes bedeviled firefighters as fires roared from mountain passes to the edges of the state's celebrated coastline, spreading so quickly that even hotels serving as temporary shelters had to be evacuated. Two people have been killed.

Homes have burned from the beaches of Malibu -- where celebrities including Barbra Streisand, Mel Gibson and David Geffen have houses -- to the mountain retreats east of Los Angeles and south through Orange and San Diego counties to Mexico.

By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned more than 1,300 homes and businesses, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. With forecasts calling for hotter temperatures and fierce wind gusts, the flames were proving nearly impossible to fight.

Triple digit heat is pushing the 6,000 firefighters to their limits. Some of these men and women have been at it now for 36 hours straight, as modified airliners skim the hilltops to drop mile-long lines of flame-retardant chemicals, reports Couric.

"When they drop retardant, when they drop water, it's literally turning to mist," because the winds are so strong it dissipates, said Matt Streck of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The 70-mile-per-hour Santa Ana winds make it nearly impossible to predict where the fire will go next. Just as crews prepare to make a stand, they get outflanked by embers that hop the lines and explode into new fires.

"You won't see a Santa Ana fire come down on you until it's too late," said Streck.

The winds fanning the wildfires are expected to subside tomorrow. But by then many more Californians will be homeless, reports Couric.

President Bush, whose administration was criticized for its handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, declared a federal emergency for seven counties, a move that will speed disaster-relief efforts. The White House said Mr. Bush will visit the region on Thursday.

"All of us across this nation are concerned for the families who have lost their homes and the many families who have been evacuated from their homes," Bush said Tuesday. "We send the help of the federal government."

The Pentagon sent troops, firefighting equipment and humanitarian supplies Tuesday to help California authorities overwhelmed by the spreading fires.

At least 346,000 homes - roughly one in three, according to census data - were evacuated in San Diego County alone, sheriff's officials said. But the total number could be much higher, and state officials were still struggling to estimate how many people had fled.

As the fires spread, most out of control, smaller blazes were merging into larger, more fearsome ones. Evacuations were being announced in one community after another as firefighters found themselves overwhelmed by gale-force Santa Ana winds, some gusting to 70 mph.

Fire crews and fleeing residents described desperate conditions that were sure to get worse. Temperatures across Southern California were about 10 degrees above average and were expected to approach 100 degrees Tuesday in Orange and San Diego counties.

Deputies arrested two men for looting in the community of Ramona, and there were a handful of other looting cases reported, said San Diego Sheriff's Lt. Mike McClain.

The fires were exploding and shooting embers in all directions, preventing crews from forming traditional fire lines and severely limiting aerial bombardment, officials said.

Thousands of residents sought shelter at fairgrounds, schools and community centers. The largest gathering was at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, where up to 10,000 were gathered. Officials said more people were expected Tuesday.

Public schools in the county were closed, as were campuses at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University.

San Diego County was ablaze from its rural north to its border region with Mexico. The wildfires claimed two lives - a 52-year-old man whose body was found Sunday and an unidentified civilian who died of burns in a Santa Clarita fire, officials said.

Santa Clarita residents fought all night to save their homes, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker.

"It was my home for 40 years and now it's gone," said one resident.

Overall, 45 people have been injured, 16 of them firefighters.

A dozen firefighters battling blazes in Orange County had to deploy emergency shelters, a last resort when they are surrounded by flames.

Orange County's fire chief angrily declared it didn't have to happen, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.

"It's an absolute fact that had we more air resources we would have been able to control this fire," said Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather.

The scope of the infernos was immense and was reminiscent of the blazes that tore through Southern California four years ago this month, killing 22 and destroying 3,640 homes.

The fires have been made worse by fierce Santa Ana winds. The winds - which sweep through Southern California's canyons in fall and winter - are stronger than normal, turning already parched scrubland into tinder. They generated walls of flame that bore down on housing developments in a wide swath.

Authorities had not even begun to estimate the dollar value of the damage in some of the hardest-hit areas, including Ranoma, a city outside San Diego, where fires had destroyed 650 structures.

East of Los Angeles, a two-front fire destroyed at least 160 homes in the Lake Arrowhead area, the same mountain resort community where hundreds of homes were lost four years earlier. Officials said at least 100 more homes were destroyed Tuesday in the mountain community of Running Springs, not far away.

"It's just sad when you see that," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said at a news conference after touring the area. "We have to do everything that we can to help these people ... to help them get back on their feet as quickly as possible."