FIREFIGHTERS made more progress yesterday against a giant wildfire that has ravaged a national forest north of Los Angeles, with another day of co-operative weather a big help to beleaguered fire crews.

A RELENTLESS southern California wildfire raged yesterday with 53 homes up in smoke, thousands more threatened and new rounds of evacuations as towering flames crackled close to foothill neighbourhoods in the path of the blaze.

Firefighters today revealed they were finally ’optimistic’ in their struggle to contain huge wildfires in southern California.

A deadly wildfire destroyed dozens of homes as it roared through a tinder-dry Southern California forest, forced thousands of residents to flee and burned dangerously close to a vital mountaintop broadcasting complex.

US officials said two firefighters have been killed when their vehicle rolled off a mountainside as they battled a massive wildfire in Californi

A GROWING wildfire in the mountains above Los Angeles surged north yesterday, forcing more evacuations and threatening some 10,000 homes.

A wildfire in the mountains above Los Angeles has surged in every direction, going in a single day from a modest threat to a danger to some 10,000 homes.

A wildfire tore through Los Angeles’ northern foothills early today sending thousands of residents fleeing in the dark, forcing a hospital to evacuate and destroying an untold number of homes.

Two wildfires driven by strong winds threatened neighbourhoods near Los Angeles today, killing one person, destroying several dozen mobile homes and forcing evacuations.

FIREFIGHTERS struggled yesterday to prevent a fire that has charred nearly 39 square miles of brushland from crossing Interstate 5, which would force authorities to again shut down traffic on one of California’s busiest freeways.

A WOMAN in Los Angeles has been taken to hospital with bubonic plague.

A van carrying workers to Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory tumbled 200 feet off a mountain road today, killing at least four people and trapping five others, officials said.

A third major US wildfire near the Angeles National Forest has spread to more than 8,000 acres, threatening hundreds of homes on the edge of the Mojave Desert.