THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2007
NEWS
NATION
5A
Fire crews keep fighting Firefighters still trying to control the flames in California
BY GARANCE BURKE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAKE ARROWHEAD, Calif. — Crews worked to contain the wild-fires that still burned in Southern California Sunday as warmer, drier air replaced the moist weather that had earlier allowed firefighters to make strong gains.
The cloudy system that brought
rain to some areas was moving out of the region, and wind up to 15 mph was expected.
"Nothing like we were seeing at the beginning of the week," said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of
"Everywhere you go in the country you get something. Here we have earthquakes and fires."
Forestry and Fire Protection. "This is fire conditions that we can actively fight, unlike the Santa Ana winds."
But there was a possibility of strong offshore winds in another seven days, he said.
It was the onset of the seasonal Santa Anas — fierce, dry wind blowing from the desert and out to sea — that spread fires across more than 500,000 acres during the week, chasing people from communities as homes burned.
woman Kim Oliver said the number included 2,013 homes.
With more than a dozen fires fully surrounded, firefighters were pushing to complete lines around seven others. Containment of those blazes ranged from 50 percent to 97 percent.
MIKE BARTHOLOMEW San Diego mortgage broker
Although fire continued to burn in the Lake Arrowhead region 100
As of Sunday, the state Office of Emergency Services tallied 2,767 structures destroyed. OES spokes-
Another big fire in the interior of Orange County, southeast of Los Angeles, was half surrounded. A blaze 60 miles
miles east of Los Angeles, an evacuation order for much of the area was lifted Sunday.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday visited a command post near Orange County's Santiago Canyon fire to announce assistance for people with losses, warn of contracting scams, and pledge to find whoever set the nearby blaze that continued to threaten homes after destroying 14.
northeast of San Diego stopped its advance toward the mountain town of Julian.
Addressing controversy over state rules that caused delay in getting military aircraft into use against the fires, Schwarzenegger said it sometimes took disaster "to really wake everyone up."
"There are things that we could improve on, and I think this is what we are going to do because a disaster like this ... in the end is a good vehicle, a motivator for everyone to come together," he said.
Seven deaths have been directly attributed to the fires, including those of four suspected illegal immigrants, whose burned bodies were found near the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday.
Eleven Mexicans were being treated at a San Diego hospital for burns suffered in the wildfires after crossing the border illegally, the Mexican government confirmed Saturday. Four were in critical condition.
About 4,400 people remained in 28 shelter sites in Southern California, while others waited out the fires in makeshift encampments.
In the Rancho Bernardo section of San Diego, mortgage broker Mike Bartholemew, 37, removed rotten food from his refrigerator Saturday as he waited for cleaners to vacuum soot from inside his home, which survived the flames.
Bartholemew said it was eerie to be surrounded by ruined homes but he was anxious to come back home as soon as electricity was restored.
"I could move to Indiana, but they have tornadoes and floods," he said. "Everywhere you go in the country you get something. Here we have earthquake and fires."
INTERNATIONAL
Newspaper discovers Gap sweatshop
ASSOCIATED PRESS
trainees.
LONDON — Clothing retailer Gap Inc. said Sunday that it would convene all of its Indian suppliers to "forcefully reiterate" its prohibition on child labor after a British newspaper found children as young as 10 making Gap clothes at a sweatshop in New Delhi.
The Observer newspaper quoted the children as saying they had been sold to the sweatshop by their families in Indian states such as Bihar and West Bengal and would not be allowed to leave until they had repaid that fee.
Some, working as long as 16 hours a day to hand-sew clothing, said they were not being paid because their employer said they were still
Gap said it first learned of the child labor allegations last week and discovered the sweatshop was being run by a subcontractor that a vendor had hired in violation of Gap's policies. The product made there will be destroyed so it cannot be sold in Gap stores, company spokesman Bill Chandler said.
"We appreciate that the media identified this subcontractor, and we acted swiftly in this situation," Chandler told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments."
The Observer quoted one boy identified only as Jivaj as saying that child employees who cried or did
not work hard enough were hit with a rubber pipe or had oily oils stuffed into their mouths.
The paper said the sweatshop that it found during its investigation in New Delhi was "smeared in filth, the corridors flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet."
The Observer printed a photograph of one of the child workers, and British Broadcasting Corp. television broadcast what it said was footage of the youngsters taken at the sweatshop.
Gap did not immediately cut ties with the supplier it accused of improper subcontracting, but Chandler said the company was taking the breach of its child labor policies "extremely seriously."
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Burns said he didn't know whether that girl was able to escape.
"There were three kids sitting on the ground screaming," said newspaper deliverer Tim Burns, who called 911 after seeing a column of smoke rising from the house. "There was one guy hanging out the window, and he jumped in the canal. I know he got out because he was yelling for a girl to follow him."
OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C.
— An intense fire ravaged a beach house packed with college students early Sunday, killing seven and leaving little left of the structure but its charred frame and the slits on which it stood.
Officials at the University of South Carolina said six of the students who died were from the school in Columbia; the seventh attended Clemson University. The six who survived were also from USC. The private home was being used by the owner's daughter and a
BY ESTES THOMPSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
Six survivors were hospitalized and released, including one who jumped from the burning home and into a waterway, Mayor Debbie Smith said.
Winds blowing flames over the water, and not toward any of the other residences on the tightly packed row of vacation homes, kept the fire from spreading.
Flames kill 7 college students, ravage waterfront residence
The fire struck the house sometime before 7 a.m. and burned completely through the first and second floors, leaving only part of the frame standing. The waterfront home — named "Changing Channels" — was built on stilts, forcing firefighters to climb a ladder onto the house's deck to reach the first living floor. Smith said the house was a total loss.
FIRE
"We ran down the street to get away," said Nick Cain, a student at the University of North Carolina who was staying at a house about 100 feet away. "The ash and the smoke were coming down on us. We were just trying to get away."
The fire appears to have affected two Greek organizations from the university — the Delta Delta Delta sorority and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, Pruitt said. Earlier in the day, a minister at the sorority house declined to comment, as did an adult who answered the door at the fraternity house.
Cain was one of the dozens of college students who filled at
The intense heat kept Burns and others from attempting a rescue, although he said he had to fight to keep several of those who escaped from trying.
Authorities erected a blue tarp to block the view of the fire scene, but neighbor Bob Alexander said he saw investigators removing bodies from the remnants of the home early Sunday afternoon.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
least four houses within a block of the burned home. Neighbor Jeff Newsome said the students were going back and forth between the houses all weekend long.
When he approached the front door, he said, it was too hot to open.
The victim's bodies were to be taken to the state medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill. Authorities from the State Bureau of Investigation and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are leading the investigation, said Randy Thompson, Brunswick County's emergency services director.
"It's a very sad day for the University of South Carolina family," said Dennis Pruitt, dean of students. "We're deeply saddened by this."
group of her friends, Smith said.
"It's terrible to see somebody's children come out of that house this way," Alexander said.
Only about 500 people live there year-round, but the town is home to several thousand rental and vacation homes and condos.
The home had working smoke detectors, Smith said.
Ocean Isle Beach is at the far southern end of North Carolina's Atlantic Coast, about 30 miles north of Myrtle Beach, S.C.
The burned home sits on one of a series of peninsulas, all tightly packed with homes, that are about two blocks from the beach and connect with the Intracoastal Waterway.
Firefighters work at the scene of a fire at a beach house in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., Sunday. Fire crews were still on the scene Sunday evening investigating the fire.