Posted on 10/26/2003 9:43:37 PM PST by GeronL
Wildfires Merge in Southern California; 13 Dead, and 850 Homes Burned
By Chelsea J. Carter Associated Press Writer
Published: Oct 26, 2003
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) - Wildfires that have burned for days merged into walls of flame stretching across miles in parts of Southern California on Sunday, leaving 13 people dead, burning more than 850 homes and frustrating overmatched firefighters who worked relentlessly against fierce winds.
The state's largest fire, in eastern San Diego County, caused at least nine deaths, including two people who died inside their car as they apparently tried to escape the flames, San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender said.
"We were literally running through fire," said Lisza Pontes, 43, who escaped the fire with her family after the roar of flames woke them at 3:45 a.m. As they drove off, they saw a neighbor's mobile home explode.
"I was grabbing wet towels. Fire was at our feet," Pontes said. "It was blazing over our heads and burning everywhere."
More than 7,000 firefighters fought 10 major fires in Southern California, one large cluster in the San Diego area and another about 100 miles north in mountainous areas north of Los Angeles.
By Sunday night, the fires had blackened 277,000 acres.
Fire also forced the evacuation of a Federal Aviation Administration control center in San Diego, disrupting air travel across the nation. Some airlines canceled flights into the region.
The biggest, at 100,000 acres, started Saturday near the mountain town of Julian when a lost hunter set off a signal fire, authorities said. The hunter was detained and may face charges.
Among those killed were one person whose body was found in a motor home, and three in other vehicles, county sheriff's spokeswoman Susan Knauss said. Three were killed while trying to escape on foot and two were dead on arrival at local hospitals.
About 260 homes were destroyed, San Diego police said.
Another fire near San Diego that started Sunday killed two people and destroyed 36 homes while burning 7,000 acres, Lora Lowes of the California Department of Forestry said. It also prompted evacuations in northeastern Escondido.
The flames drew much of their strength from the fierce Santa Ana winds, whose gusts of up to 70 mph moved the fires along.
Around the congested suburbs of San Bernardino, a city of about 200,000 about 50 miles east of Los Angeles, one flank of a 59,000-acre fire burned through four towns while the other flank destroyed more than 400 homes.
Two men collapsed and died, one as he was evacuating his canyon home and the other as he watched his house burn, the county coroner said.
Authorities announced they were seeking two men for investigation of arson and possibly murder in connection with the fire, which ravaged foothill neighborhoods of San Bernardino and threatened mountain homes. One man was seen Saturday morning throwing something into roadside brush that caught fire, then he and a companion fled in a van, officials said.
The 30-mile fire in the San Bernardino area was formed when two smaller fires merged, covering the region with thick smoke and ash.
Other fires on the outskirts of Los Angeles County merged to create a 80,000-acre fire burning near suburbs late Sunday northwest of Los Angeles in Ventura County.
Firefighters, including 25 strike teams and 125 engines, tried to make a stand at Crestline in the San Bernardino National Forest, according to U.S. Forest Service fire information officer Stanton Florea. About 25 homes burned in the area.
Firefighters were spread thinly around threatened communities, focusing on saving what homes they could. Winds prevented the air tanker drops of retardant and use of backfires that are key tactics of fire containment.
The area is vulnerable because drought and an infestation of bark beetles have left millions of dead trees.
"If the fire starts to crown, racing from one tree to the next, it will be an extreme situation," Florea said.
Brandy DeBatte, 21, stayed at her Crestline home until the electricity went out and the smoke started to thicken.
"I got our animals. I got insurance papers. I didn't want to be up there if the town was going to burn down," she said.
Hours later, she was having second thoughts as she realized how much she had left behind: "I should have gotten more out, and I didn't."
Three looters who tried to take advantage of the San Bernardino evacuations were arrested, police said.
Gov. Gray Davis, who visited the San Bernardino fire on Friday, returned Sunday to announce he was extending the state of emergency to Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
"These are the worst fires that we've faced in California in 10 years," Davis said.
Davis' administration also gave an emergency briefing to Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Some of the evacuations ordered included Indian reservation casinos, California State University, San Bernardino, where fire burned two temporary classrooms and a temporary fitness center, and a state mental hospital.
About 1,100 prison inmates also were evacuated, and at least 200 juvenile wards were evacuated Sunday from two probation camps, said Ken Kondo, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Probation Department spokesman.
About 1,000 people packed the San Bernardino International Airport center, including 50 elderly residents of a convalescent home.
At the Alexander Hughes Community Center in Claremont, where more than 50 homes were destroyed, evacuees searched for friends and neighbors.
A note on a bulletin board outside the center read: "Dear Kim and Joanne. I came for you here and want to offer you my extra bedroom and as much hospitality as you need. Love, Gina."
The National Football League moved Monday night's football game between the Chargers and Miami Dolphins from Qualcomm Stadium, which is being used as an evacuation center, to Tempe, Ariz.
The winds were expected to subside Monday before picking up later in the week in the San Bernardino area, National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Balfour said.
"We'll have a 24- to 36-hour window where winds will die down, but the vegetation is so dry and the terrain so steep that the fire will probably take off and go into the mountains then," Balfour said. "It will want to race up the ridges."
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Unless it's a leaner over the top of the house, that's a ripoff, even in California.
I do my own tree work. I climb and top. My forest is in pretty good shape and getting better every year (our place is a helicopter medical evacuation site). If a fire came through here, I'd get chainsaw, drop a couple of trees near the property line, set up a 1-1/2 hose below the house, get a cup of coffee and watch it crawl through the undergrowth. A fire would be a big help to clear out the weed seed. Adjacent to my place is a eucalyptus grove. Now THAT'S a fuel bomb that would spray seed in the draft for a half mile.
The property owner(s), the insurance companies, and the fire department have convinced themselves that "people will only hurt themselves or each other if they use the fire hoses."
I do not know how widespread through the downtown area, this is in effect, but the net of it is that:
There are no firehoses in the building --- the hoses have been removed!
Our building is just opposite the state capitol.
A friend who worked at a local hospital, made a tour through it to double-check and found that:
There are no firehoses in the hospital!
This means, that if the Islamic terrorists hit the downtown with fire, The New York Times will get to write up the story of the pool of metal that remains of the "brave first responders' fire truck." And you all can wonder what really happened.
I'm here to tell you all beforehand, that I am the first responsder --- you heard the story here, first.
About the amateur who tried, not to get water, but firehoses with which to deliver the water --- the firehoses that previously were in the buildings, but had been removed upon the decisions of "experts" according to our government now under the control of the judiciary.
The statutes require the hoses.
The judges do not.
Ah yes.
The Sierra Club; Friends of the Dirt; Greenpeace; the ACLU; PETA....
Our very own domestic terrorists.
War by other means.
As an Engineer I have always tought similarly, that proactive planning and minimal additional work would go a long way, until I realized...
That Friends of the dirt, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the ACLU, all conspire to prevent adequate fire fighting and bulletproof water supplies, since they are "growth inducing", and encourage more damn people to move into an area.
No water supply, no power, and the best preparation is useless.
Not true. Vegetation management is really all you need. We could do just fine in a fire without either water or power (although the principle reason I sited the house where I did was so that I could have 35psi of gravity-feed water pressure). The easiest way for me to keep my house from burning would be to go out there with a torch and light a backfire below the house. I clear off that slope every 7-10 years and did much of it last year. I won't do the backfire because I don't know where the firefighters might be and they wouldn't know what was coming. The only reason for the hose is to obviate that need. We're ready.
Ah yes, the ol' "Let the professionals do that," syndrome. I know it well. You could have fire hose training as a part of OJT, but since the disabled can't do it, no one else is so allowed.
It's a disease.
My entire point was that regardless of why that pipe is there or what the water pressure is, you are relying on having any water at all on a purely political (and often mindless) process, not based on safety, for decades now.
I'm not relying upon anybody to fight a fire on my property. I don't need to. I did the ten years of hard work and took care of my forest. I don't have an excess of fuel. If I didn't have stupid neighbors down the hill, or a risk of that idiot firefighters might be lost in the woods, I wouldn't even need a hose. A little backfire would do.
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