Southern California Wildfires

We've been watching all week as the wildfires have raged across Southern California. The devastation has been incredible. As of this writing, the fires have consumed some 775 square miles. Hundreds of thousands of people have had to be evacuated. Eighty percent of the 1,800 homes lost to the fires were in the San Diego area. A woman interviewed on one of the cable news channels talked about how after she was evacuated from her house, she watched it burn on the news -- she described it as being completely consumed by flames. Not an easy thing to watch. But she said the tougher thing was having to explain to her 4-year-old daughter that her beloved purple room with all her things in it was gone. But she said she promised her daughter she'd have a new purple room soon.

By now you've seen dozens if not hundreds of photos from the week's coverage of the fires. They make for gripping images. And now, with the fires abating and people going back to their homes, the displaced families will discover the devastated landscapes that once were their homes. The boy in the photo below, for example, is telling his Mom where they should dig for his missing collection of arrowheads.

The coverage will continue, although as the days move on, not necessarily on the front pages of AOL or other Web sites, or on the front pages of newspapers. But you can continue to keep up with the coverage and the stories of the people who in many cases have lost everything, on our News page.

You also can find the continuing stream of photos that come in minute by minute through our feeds photo gallery on that page. You will find on that News page a photo gallery of the most impactful photos from the fires, edited by our staff of News photo editors, as well as another gallery that contains all the wildfire photos we have access to through our News photo feeds that are automatically updated every five minutes.

Tags: Wildfires