Bush Declares Statewide Emergency

President Bush today declared the entire state of California to be in a state of emergency and ordered 75 percent federal funding for firefighting efforts. "I just took off with the plane down from Los Angeles and, literally from Los Angeles all the way up here, there was smoke, so you can see that there's fire everywhere," Gov. Schwarzenegger noted in an earlier request for federal aid. "This fire season has started with a vengeance,'' Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in thanking the president for the emergency declaration. "Lightning has ignited blazes up and down the state, stretching our resources to the limit.'' Nearly 200,000 acres have burned from Big Sur to the Oregon border according to Cal Fire.