Californians return to burnt out homes

via Stuff - http://www.stuff.co.nz/4765003a12.html

Shocked residents began returning home to three areas of Southern California ravaged by wildfires, some finding their houses and cars reduced to piles of smoking, melted rubble.

Three fires have over the past five days destroyed around 1,000 homes and blacken 55 square miles (142 sq km) across Southern California - ranging from mobile homes to apartments and multimillion-dollar mansions.

No deaths or major injuries have been reported and the cause of the fires was not known.
Southern California is in a drought after minimal rainfall for two years that has turned the terrain bone dry. Population growth over the past 20 years has seen once arid brushland on city outskirts turned into housing developments.