SAN DIEGO - After three days of a vicious firestorm, exhausted firefighters and weary residents looked forward Wednesday to a break — an expected slackening of the gale force winds that have ignited the state's largest complex of wildland blazes.
Forecasters said the Santa Ana breezes that have fanned flames across Southern California will begin to weaken late Wednesday afternoon, followed by cooling sea breezes. The series of 16 wildfires has destroyed nearly 1,300 homes.
"By Thursday, we're expecting it to be pretty much over," said Noel Isla, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's San Diego office.
The welcome forecast of lower temperatures and lighter winds will be accompanied by an injection of additional firefighters and equipment from other states. Frustration over the firefighting effort erupted Tuesday, when a fire official said not enough had been done to protect homes.
Orange County Fire Chief Chip Prather told reporters that firefighters' lives were threatened because too few crews were on the ground. He said a quick deployment of aircraft could have corralled a massive blaze near Irvine.
"It is an absolute fact: Had we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire," he said.
The fires have injured 21 firefighters and at least 24 others. One person was killed by the flames, and the San Diego medical examiner's officer listed four other deaths as connected to the blazes.
The state's top firefighter said Prather misstated the availability of firefighters and equipment. Eight of the state's nine water-dumping helicopters were in Southern California by Sunday, when the first fires began, along with 13 air tankers, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Grijalva said the fires, spread by winds that at times topped 100 mph, would have overwhelmed most efforts to fight them.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dismissed the criticism when questioned by an ABC News reporter.
"Anybody that is complaining about the planes just wants to complain because there's a bunch of nonsense," he said. "The fact is that we could have all the planes in the world here — we have 90 aircraft here and six that we got especially from the federal government — and they can't fly because of the wind situation."
Tentacles of unpredictable, shifting flame have burned across nearly 640 square miles, killing one person, destroying more than 1,300 homes and prompting the biggest evacuation in California history, from north of Los Angeles, through San Diego to the Mexican border.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the flames were threatening 68,000 more homes.
