Just in case some people aren't familiar with '
CDF', it's the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The CDF's mission is the fire protection and stewardship of over 31 million acres of California's privately-owned wildlands. In addition, it provides varied emergency services in 35 of the State's 58 counties via contracts with local governments.
NBCSandiego.com
11:24 p.m. PST October 28, 2003
Residents fled from rural communities in north, east and southern San Diego County Tuesday as fires continued to rage out off control for a third day.
Exhausted fire crews were pulled back in San Diego County even though two devastating blazes threatened to merge into a super fire. "They're so fatigued that despite the fact the fire perimeter might become much larger, we're not willing to let the firefighters continue any further," said Rich Hawkins, a U.S. Forest Service fire chief. "They are too fatigued from three days of battle."
The flames are feeding on millions of dead trees, weakened by drought and killed by a bark beetle infestation. Officials were particularly worried about "crowning," where flames leap from one treetop to another, leaving firefighters on the ground all but powerless to stop them.
"If that occurs, we don't have the capability to put those fires out," U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Carol Beckley said. "It will be a firestorm."
Ten thousand firefighters were on the front lines throughout the state, battling California's deadliest wildfires in more than a decade.
Authorities announced two more deaths in San Bernardino County on Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the fires to 16.
Since Oct. 21, at least 10 wind-driven wildfires -- many of them arson-caused -- have rampaged through Southern California, demolishing neighborhoods, gutting businesses and blackening more than half a million acres of land from the Mexican border to the Ventura-Los Angeles county line. Nearly 1,600 homes have been destroyed. Two burn victims were in critical condition in San Diego.
San Diego's Cedar Fire is the largest in California. It has blackened more than 215,000 acres -- nearly 10 percent of the county.
It formed a 45-mile front in the East County and was just miles from merging with the 37,000-acre Paradise Fire fire near Escondido.
The City of San Diego isn't marked on the map - it's in the bottom left corner just above 'Chula Vista'.
Satellite image showing smoke plumes over the county
