Fire blazes in Los Angeles as wild weather sweeps US (Roundup)

May 9, 2007, 22:19 GMT

Los Angeles - A fierce brush fire spread to more than 330 hectares of Griffith Park in Los Angeles Wednesday, in what officials said was the worst fire in the city limits since 1961.

The fire was one of a series of wild weather events across the United States, as large areas of several US Midwestern states were under water. Flooding hit parts of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, and the National Weather Service issued flood advisories for seven other states across the Midwest and south.

Also Wednesday, US President George W Bush toured a Kansas town virtually wiped out by a tornado last week, getting his first look at devastation in which 10 people died.

In another weather development, the National Hurricane Centre in Miami named subtropical Storm Andrea the year's first named storm. The weak, slow-moving storm was about 190 kilometres off the coast of north-east Florida and south-east Georgia, three weeks before the official start of hurricane season.

The Los Angeles fire broke out Tuesday afternoon after two days of near record temperatures and after a drought-ravaged winter that kept the area's steep canyons unseasonably dry.

By late afternoon Wednesday the fire was 50 per cent contained. But it had destroyed much of the popular recreation zone, forcing the evacuation of local landmarks like the Los Angeles Zoo, The Griffith Observatory, the Greek Theatre and hundreds of upscale homes in the Los Feliz neighbourhood adjacent to the park. The animals were not evacuated from the zoo, and essential staff were allowed to stay.

Hundreds of firefighters worked through the night to control the blaze, the Los Angeles Fire Department's Rick Garcia said. He said this is the first time in his 30 years with the department that water-dropping aircraft had been used in the second largest city in the US. The fire, which may have been started by a homeless man who fell asleep smoking a cigarette, was described by City Councilman Tom LaBonge as the city's worst since the Bel Air fire of 1961.

Television pictures showed groups of firefighters huddled under a bridge for protection as 10-metre-high flames blazed around them.

The 1,800-hectare park between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley is crisscrossed with hiking trails and recreational structures. It was the second major blaze to strike the park this year as record-low rainfall has raised the risk of brush fires. In late March, the western edge of the park as well as the Hollywood sign were threatened by a brush fire that consumed more than 60 hectares.

Up to 18 centimetres of rain had fallen in Missouri and Kansas since Sunday, CNN reported. Televised images showed fast moving, muddy waters covering roads, and many residents were prepared to evacuate.

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency.

The Missouri River crested in Saint Joseph, Missouri Tuesday, but did so earlier than expected sparing residents from more major flooding, the Kansas City Star newspaper reported. In total five levees were breached, submerging the town of Big Lake Missouri and forcing thousands to flee flooding that could approach the record devastation of 1993, reports said.

In Kansas, officials struggled to deal with the aftermath of the flooding and the deadly tornado that flattened the town of Greensburg over the weekend.

'A lot of us have seen the pictures about what happened here and pictures don't do it justice,' Bush said after touring the Greensburg area. 'There is a lot of destruction.'