Fire, Natural Disaster | featured news

A religious statue stands in the fire-scorched landscape of Breezy Point after a Nor'easter snow, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012 in New York. The beachfront neighborhood was devastated during Superstorm Sandy when a fire pushed by the raging winds destroyed many homes.

A huge fire destroyed 80 to 100 houses in a flooded beachfront neighborhood Tuesday, forcing firefighters to undertake daring rescues and injuring three people. More than 190 firefighters contained the blaze but were still putting out some pockets of fire more than nine hours after it erupted.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in three Northern California counties on Wednesday after a wildfire that has already destroyed 64 homes advanced with 75-foot flames on a tiny community at the doorstep of a national park.

As hundreds of residents in Washington and California were allowed to return to homes once threatened by major wildfires, some people were told to evacuate as encroaching blazes neared Idaho towns.

Lorie Winmill grew teary as she loaded her vehicle and prepared her 4-year-old granddaughter to stay with relatives as a wildfire burned closer to this small town in central Idaho.

Christopher Carlson sprang into action when smoke and embers ushered a fire that threatened to envelop his Noble, Oklahoma, home. After taking his 12-year-old stepson to safety, Carlson raced against time to assist neighbors and try to save his trailer from one of more than a dozen wildfires that, as of Saturday, had destroyed more than 120 structures.

McCann, 19, was fleeing Colorado’s most destructive fire -- the Waldo Canyon fire -- when she lost control of her Subaru while trying to pass another vehicle on Interstate 84 between Boise and Mountain Home, Idaho. Her car went off the road and began burning -- starting another wildfire.

One person was dead as massive wildfires in drought-parched Colorado and New Mexico burned out of control, while Western lawmakers pleaded for updates to an aging U.S. aerial firefighting fleet needed to combat a fire season that lasts year-round.

Experts say a massive wildfire that has become the largest blaze in New Mexico history may just be a preview of what's to come after months of drought.

A Colorado family managed to escape their neighborhood as a wildfire engulfed it — and it was all caught on video. KUSA-TV's Will Ripley reports.