Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times via Associated Press

A firefighter runs for safety as flames shoot up unexpectedly along East Grade Road on Palomar Mountain in Southern California. All of the firefighters escaped unharmed Wednesday.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

A burnt lawn jockey stands in front of the ruins of a home in the mountain resort town of Lake Arrowhead in Southern California. Lake Arrowhead, in San Bernardino County, has been one of the areas worst-hit by the firestorm that began late Saturday. More than 300 homes have been destroyed, and fire officials said 6,000 homes remained in the path of two wildfires that remain out of control. The fires were being bombarded by aerial tankers and helicopters today.

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SAN DIEGO — The availability of electric power for San Diego County became a concern today after a wildfire cut a main link with Arizona, officials said.

And another blaze near the Marine base at Camp Pendleton was threatening the main north-south power corridor that connects San Diego with the rest of California.

About 19,500 customers were without power either because of downed lines or to ensure the safety of firefighters, officials said.

Additional power was being shipped from Mexico, said Sempra Utilities Chief Operating Officer Michael Niggli.

Although the fierce Santa Ana winds that pushed the California wildfires earlier in the week have tapered off, San Diego County remained a tinderbox today, with more than 8,500 homes still threatened.

Firefighters cut fire lines around the four major blazes in the county, but none of those fires was more than 40 percent contained.

Towns scattered throughout the county remained on the edge of disaster, including the apple-picking region around Julian, where dozens of homes burned in 2003.

To the northeast, in the San Bernardino County mountain resort of Lake Arrowhead, fire officials said 6,000 homes remained in the path of two wildfires that had destroyed more than 300 homes.

The fires remained out of control, but they were being bombarded by aerial tankers and helicopters.

In Orange County, the Santiago fire has burned more than 30 square miles and destroyed nine homes. Only 50 percent contained, it is a suspected arson fire.

Agents from the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were sent to help investigate. Authorities said a smaller, more recent fire in Riverside County also is linked to arson.

Police shot and killed a man who fled Tuesday night when officers approached to see if he might be trying to set a fire in San Bernardino. The man, whose name was not released, had led police on a chase then backed his car into a police cruiser, police said.

Meanwhile, crews found two burned bodies in a gutted house near Poway, north of San Diego, authorities said today.

Medical examiners were trying to establish the identities of the bodies, Sheriff Bill Kolender said.

Earlier in the week, flames claimed the life of a 52-year-old man in Tecate. The San Diego medical examiner's office listed five other deaths as connected to the blazes because all who died were evacuees.

The number of victims could rise as authorities return to neighborhoods where homes burned.

Some evacuees were being allowed back into their neighborhoods in San Diego, and shelters were emptying. Qualcomm Stadium, home of the San Diego Charges of the National Football League, had just 2,500 people left this morning. There had been more than 10,000 people in the stadium at the height of the evacuations earlier this week.

So far, at least 15 fires have destroyed about 1,500 homes in Southern California since late Saturday.

The burn area of nearly 719 square miles stretches in a broad arc from Ventura County north of Los Angeles east to the San Bernardino National Forest and south to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Losses total at least $1 billion in San Diego County alone, and include a third of the state's avocado crop. The losses are half as high as those in Southern California's 2003 fires but are certain to rise.

News about the possible electric power problem came a day after residents in some hard-hit San Diego County neighborhoods were allowed back to their streets, many lined with the wreckage of melted cars.

In upscale Rancho Bernardo, house after house had been reduced to a smoldering heap. Cheryl Monticello, 38 and eight months' pregnant, had to see for herself that her home was gone. Only the white brick chimney and her daughter's backyard slide survived the inferno.

"You really need to see it to know for sure," Monticello said Wednesday.

Running Springs resident Ricky Garcia returned to his house in the San Bernardino Mountains on Wednesday, panicked that his street had been wiped out and his cats, Jeff and Viper, were lost.

But his house, newly built on a cleared lot, was unscathed, unlike those of his neighbors. Hiding underneath a porch and mewing loudly was Jeff, his long, black hair gray with ash. Viper was nowhere in sight.

"I'm excited to see my cat and my house, but absolutely devastated for my neighbors," he said, preparing to evacuate again.

As nature's blitzkrieg starts to recede, many of the other refugees will be allowed back to their neighborhoods. More than 500,000 people were evacuated in San Diego County alone, part of the largest mass evacuation in California history.

"We are focusing more on recovery and getting these people back up on their feet again," County spokeswoman Lesley Kirk said.