California firefighters battle early season blazes

The fires erupted during a heat wave on Sunday and Monday and have burned about 16,000 acres of mostly mountain scrub, forcing evacuations and threatening thousands of homes.

Last year, hot and dry conditions touched off 14 major wildfires in Southern California's mountain ranges in what forestry officials dubbed "The October Fire Siege of 2003."

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Those fires killed 24 people, destroyed 3,710 homes and charred about 750,000 acres.

Fire officials said only a fraction of the dead trees that fueled last year's firestorms had been consumed, leaving plenty of dry tinder for new fires.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (news - web sites) on Tuesday quickly made funds available for more firefighters and equipment for the two largest fires, known as the Eagle and Cerritos fires.

State and local agencies have already dispatched more than 2,700 firefighters to the six new fires, according to the California Department of Forestry.

On Monday, fire investigators arrested a 44-year-old man on suspicion of causing the Cerritos fire, the largest of the new blazes, which has consumed about 9,000 acres of vegetation and two homes, CDF officials said.

The suspect, Rick Brown, was seen dragging a large piece of steel behind a vehicle on Monday afternoon that sent sparks into dry brush on either side of a mountain road near Corona, about 51 miles east of Los Angeles, officials said.

The Cerritos fire chased about 600 residents from their homes on Monday night. It was 15 percent contained on Tuesday, officials said.