President Bush aboard AirForce One landed a little past 9:30 am of October 25, 2007 at Miramar Air Station San Diego accompanied on the flight from Washington by key Government Officials including Congressman Drier and Senator Dianne Feinstein among others. President Bush saw firsthand the damage from the devastating wildfires in Southern California aboard presidential chopper Marine One with Governor Arnold Swartzenneger and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff , and promised federal help for the victims of the disaster.
President Bush comforts Kendra Jeffcoate while her husband Jay looks on, whose home was damaged by the California wildfires. "We're not going to forget you in Washington, D.C.," Bush said at the command center for the nearly 200,000-acre Witch Fire in San Diego County.
"We want the people to know that there's a better day ahead," he said.
"Today your life may look dismal, but tomorrow life will be better, and to the extent that the federal government can help, we want to do so."
Earlier, wearing black pants and rolled-up shirtsleeves, the president crunched through the rubble of a home in the Rancho Bernardo neighborhood in San Diego with the property owner Kendra Jeffcoate and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The woman pointed out where the rooms of the home once stood, as she and Bush perched on the terra cotta tiles of her roof -- which now lay on the ground.
Ironically, the only recognizable structure remaining was the corner of a stucco wall with the address plaque on it.
The president is working to prove his administration is proactively tackling the disaster, after he and top officials were accused of a late and ineffective response to Hurricane Katrina two years ago.
The cost of homes destroyed by the wildfires is likely to top $1 billion in San Diego County alone, an emergency official said.
Before he spoke, Bush shook hands with dozens of firefighters and police who were working the fires. He praised their bravery and their service as they battled fires that had consumed 462,415 acres (723 square miles) since Sunday.
Almost 1,600 homes have been destroyed.
Hours earlier, fire crews found two bodies inside a home in Poway, one of the communities hit hardest by the fires, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department said.
They are only the second and third bodies found in a burned home so far -- the first was a Navy civilian engineer who died at his home in Tecate Sunday.
Seven other deaths are labeled fire-related: Three people died during evacuations, and four others died after being evacuated. Seventy-eight people, including at least 36 firefighters, have been injured.
Winds that fanned the wildfires calmed to single-digit speeds Thursday, while the lifting of evacuation orders allowed thousands to return to check on their homes.
At one point, almost 1 million people were under evacuation orders as fires burned from the Mexican border to northern Los Angeles County.
All residential areas in the city of San Diego have been reopened to residents who fled the fires, Mayor Jerry Sanders announced Thursday afternoon.
About 19,440 evacuees remain in shelters statewide, officials said, although many others are staying in hotels or with family and friends.
At the largest shelter, Qualcomm Stadium, most of the 11,000 evacuees there earlier this week had left. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said 2,500 were left Thursday, and police said 300 people had spent the night at what's usually the home of the San Diego Chargers.
Evacuee Mark Davis was able to return to the site of his Rancho Bernardo home Wednesday, finding the two-story structure burned to the ground.
"It was us. We had been there 28 years, and it had a lot of our flavor," Davis said
The wildfires are the largest natural disaster in the United States since Hurricane Katrina, and Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison promised "a different type of response than the federal government put together" for the 2005 storm.
Almost 8,900 firefighters have been battling the blazes.
"It hurts us to have those homes lost. It hurts us to have those injuries. And it is frustrating for us to watch our community be devastated by this," firefighter Andy Menshek said.
On Thursday morning, officials cited some degree of containment on all but one of the 23 blazes in the seven-county area since the weekend. The Slide Fire in the San Bernardino Mountains still burned out of control.
The Witch Fire, the largest at almost 200,000 acres, was 20 percent contained, fire officials said.
The National Weather Service forecast light winds across Southern California on Thursday, relieving the pressure on firefighters.
Meanwhile, arson investigations are under way in Orange and Riverside counties in connection with some of the wildfires. Watch how arson investigators look for clues »
The FBI, the ATF, and the Orange County Fire Authority are investigating the Santiago Fire that has burned 23,000 acres.
"We found multiple points of origin and that leads us to suspect arson, and our investigators confirmed this is in fact arson," said Kris Concepcion, the battalion chief for the Santiago Fire.
"Whoever has started this has started it in different points that indicate that they wanted it to grow rapidly," Concepcion said on CNN's "American Morning." Watch the raging flames of the Santiago Fire »
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection also considers the Rosa Fire in Riverside County an arson case. It burned more than 400 acres before being fully contained
President Bush proceeded to Kit Carson Park in Escondido where he met with some of the first responders.
At an earlier stop in a Rancho Bernardo neighborhood, he was asked a question about comparing this disaster to Katrina. "I'm thinking about people whose lives are turned upside down. The experts can try to figure out whether the response was appropriate or not," he said. "All I can tell you is when the governor calls, I answer his phone."
He also said: "There is all kinds of time for history to compare this response or that response. "Those of us who are here from government, our hearts are right here with the Jeffcoat's (family),'' he said, referring to a family he visited.