BajaNomad

Ensenada fire destroys 55 homes

elgatoloco - 10-25-2007 at 05:36 PM

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20071025-1...


Ensenada fire destroys 55 homes



UNION-TRIBUNE

11:57 a.m. October 25, 2007

TIJUANA – A fire that began Monday outside Ensenada has destroyed 55 homes after about 250 people were evacuated in the communities of Ejido Antonio Melendrez and Ejido Esteban Cantu, Baja California authorities said Wednesday.
As residents of these rural communities, about 20 miles south of the port of Ensenada, began rebuilding their lives with government aid, firefighters and soldiers battled a nearby blaze yesterday afternoon, and an additional 20 people were forced to evacuate their homes, authorities said.

In Tijuana, scattered fires have destroyed about 60 homes in the eastern part of the city since Sunday, authorities said. The cause in some cases may have been a combination of high winds and loose electric wires, known as diablitos, that people use to connect their homes illegally to utility poles in impoverished neighborhoods.

“This is a tragedy that we must make our own,” Gov. Eugenio Elorduy Walther said of the devastation in San Diego during a news conference Wednesday. “We all have friends and relatives in San Diego. We are good neighbors and friendly ones.”