Prosecutors in California are to review evidence before deciding whether to charge a 12-year-old boy whose play with matches started a blaze that ripped through nearly 60 square miles and destroyed 21 homes.

Firefighters aided by damp weather made progress against the last of Southern California’s big wildfires, hoping to squash the remaining flames before the possible return of winds this week.

Cloudy skies and occasional raindrops brought a welcome improvement in conditions in southern California, where firefighters were battling wildfires.

Firefighters were given a breathing space in their battle against the blazes sweeping Southern California today.

Northern California residents were braced for a second storm to hit the region tonight, a day after the first sent rivers flooding into cities and mud sliding into homes and on highways.

PEOPLE in Los Angeles were left terrified when they were told to lie flat in the nearest ditch as the city was about to be hit by a monster storm.

People in Los Angeles were left terrified that they were about to be hit by a monster storm.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the community hardest hit by the state’s first deadly earthquake in nine years, declaring a local state of emergency as aftershocks rattled beneath the central California wine country.

With wind-driven flames threatening the densely populated areas near Los Angeles, firefighters dug today for another brutal day battling one of the most destructive and deadly wildfire outbreaks in California history.

Ash fell on the beach like snow as California’s deadliest outbreak of fires in more than a decade destroyed more than 1,100 homes, killed at least 15 people and consumed land from south of the Mexican border to the suburbs north of Los Angeles.