Weather Is Now Firefighters' Ally

Moist air and cooler temperatures appeared to weaken several large fires marching across Southern California on Friday, as questions emerged over how emergency crews responded to the first reports on flame.

In the past week some 13 fires have scorched 744,000 acres, taken 20 lives and destroyed 2,800 homes. On Thursday and early Friday, fog and drizzle were lending a hand to weary firefighters.

"It is helping, but it is a long way from putting any fires out," said Ray Snodgrass, chief deputy director of the California Forestry Department. "It's the respite we were hoping for."

The massive Cedar Fire is said to be about 38% contained, but is still burning towards the East with a fire line that is estimated to be 98 miles in length. The Old Fire was only 10 percent contained. Near Escondido, the Paradise Fire was roughly 20 percent in hand at last report.

The mountaintop resort of Big Bear Lake was the only major community still threatened by the wildfires.

Big Bear, which has been evacuated, is now filling up with firefighters preparing for battle, reports CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone. Sheriff's deputies are patrolling the empty town watching for looters, after four suspected looters were arrested.

But he says his request wasn't met because it came minutes after such flights had been grounded for the night. Pilot Dave Weldon tells The Associated Press that he saw state firefighting planes on a nearby airstrip and called for assistance.

But under state safety guidelines, no flights are allowed to go into waning daylight. Weldon says the air tankers he called for never took off, and says he was told crews would attack the fire in the morning.

Within hours, the flames went out of control and killed several residents between the mountains east of San Diego and the city.

Meanwhile, the first helicopter pilot to see the patch of flames that would become the catastrophic Cedar Fire said he radioed for aerial water drops, but state firefighters rejected his request because it came minutes after such flights had been grounded for the night.

Within hours, the flames cascaded out of control and killed 13 residents between the mountains east of San Diego and the city. It eventually became the largest wildfire in California history.

Southern California was already besieged by flames Saturday evening when the San Diego County Sheriff's helicopter went to search for a lost hunter who allegedly lit a beacon fire.

Pilot Dave Weldon told The Associated Press on Thursday that he saw state firefighting planes on a nearby airstrip as he approached the mountains at 110 mph. He called down for help because his dispatcher had relayed reports of smoke in the area, but got no response.

That was around 5:45 p.m. A few minutes later, he spotted smoke from the fire, then only about 50 yards on each side and not spreading.

The problem was that under state safety guidelines, no flights are allowed to go up into waning daylight. On Saturday, the cutoff was 5:36 p.m., said Capt. Ron Serabia, the California Department of Forestry official who coordinates the 12 tankers and 10 helicopters now battling the 272,000-acre blaze. The sun set that day at 6:05 p.m.

Andrea Tuttle, director of the California Department of Forestry, said Friday that the primary decision-making criteria in sending the planes out is safety.

"We're at the point now where there's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on and a lot of decisions are being examined," Tuttle told NBC. "I unfortunately was on duty when we had the unfortunate mid-air collision two years ago, so we're extremely sensitive to the safety aspects."

In all, nearly 12,000 firefighters and support personnel were fighting what Gov. Gray Davis said may be the worst and costliest disaster California has ever faced.

Davis and Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger are scheduled to appear together Friday afternoon at the opening of a relief center for fire victims in Claremont.

The state is spending an estimated $9 million a day fighting the wildfires, a near doubling of the estimate just two days ago. The total cost of fighting the fires could reach $200 million, and the toll on the California economy has been put at $2 billion.

However, the wildfires will likely have a mixed economic impact, devastating tourism in rural playgrounds like Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear but causing a temporary bump in the construction industry as homes are rebuilt, economists said Thursday.

Some businesses could take years to recover after flames destroyed offices and storefronts. Others lost hundreds of hours of productivity when workers were stuck on clogged highways or evacuated from their homes.

But there are firms that stand to profit as people rebuild and refurnish homes. Economists said insurance claims generated by the fires could exceed the $1.7 billion paid after the 1991 Oakland Hills fire.

"The real damage in the fire is the direct damage. That's large, but it's compensated," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, an independent research organization in Palo Alto. "It's a human tragedy. It's not so much an economic tragedy."

On Thursday, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports one town looked like a nuclear nightmare – at least 350 homes incinerated by flames so hot they melted cars and reduced almost everything else to ash.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told the CBS News Early Show: "The president is very, very concerned about the victims in those communities."

The House on Thursday, voting on a funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, added $500 million for Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance to cover the wildfires in California and elsewhere.