A pictorial. Click picture for more in this series.
WW II era amphibious air tanker called the Martin Mars helps to contain the massive wildfire.
This wildfire is terrible in its devastation and loss of life, but the saddest part is that this fire ( like all the others before it) was entirely predictable and preventable - if the misguided patchouli sniffing, Gaia worshipers weren't ruling from on high in L.A. County:
"Could more have been done to clear tinder-dry hillsides and canyons?
"We don't necessarily disagree with that," Bear said. "We weren't able to complete what we wanted to do."
Some critics suggested that protests from environmentalists contributed to the disaster, which came after the brush was allowed to build up for as much as 40 years.
"This brush was ready to explode," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, whose district overlaps the forest. "The environmentalists have gone to the extreme to prevent controlled burns, and as a result we have this catastrophe today."
But the A.P. headline writers were keen to put the malfeasance on 'the feds'.