Los Angeles Times, by Staff

Thousands Evacuate as Flames Scorch 50,000 Acres

By Janet Wilson, Lance Pugmire and Monte Morin

Times Staff Writers

Wildfires driven by winds and high temperatures burned out of control Saturday in the San Bernardino Mountains, triggering firestorms that destroyed more than 200 homes in foothill suburbs and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents from San Bernardino to Rancho Cucamonga.

Stoked by Santa Ana winds that knocked firefighters off their feet and grounded water-dropping helicopters and airplanes, scattered fires covered more than 50,000 acres from Ventura to San Diego counties and raised a ceiling of thick black smoke that spread ash for miles. In all, more than 4,000 firefighters were deployed and more than 13,000 homes threatened.

Two San Bernardino men were reported dead, apparently from heart attacks, Saturday--one as he tried to evacuate and another as he watched his house burn. They were identified as James W. McDermith, 70, and Charles Cunnigham, 93. Firefighters searched smoldering homes overnight for residents who might have failed to escape.

Firefighters, who had already labored for days in triple-digit temperatures, faced their gravest challenge Saturday in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains just east of the 215 Freeway.

Cyclones of embers tore through the historic San Bernardino neighborhood of Del Rosa, setting dozens of houses ablaze. Flames leapt from building to building along cul-de-sacs on the edge of the foothills, as palm and pine trees exploded in flames. As residents fled, some homeowners ignored the order, wrapped towels over their faces and attempted to save their homes with garden hoses.

"Today we have bad news and worse news," San Bernardino County Deputy Fire Chief Dan Worl told a group of fire evacuees. "We just don't have any place to contain this fire."

The blaze, 50 miles east of Los Angeles, spread rapidly along two fronts and late Saturday threatened to burn explosively dry forests devastated by drought and bark beetles. By 9:40 p.m., a separate fire in Crestline had prompted mandatory evacuations of Twin Peaks, Blue Jay and Crestline communities and closed Highway 330, the route to Big Bear, to all traffic. Federal officials Saturday closed the San Bernardino National Forest to all visitors.

Local officials called upon Gov. Gray Davis to declare a state of emergency as fire authorities urged thousands of residents to evacuate. Within hours, a makeshift evacuation center at the San Bernardino International Airport was overflowing with fire refugees.

The so-called Old Fire in San Bernardino devoured more than 10,000 acres of forest land and scores of homes in the Del Rosa Estates area and along Quail Canyon. As of late Saturday, fire officials said more than 200 homes and other structures were destroyed, said San Bernardino Fire Chief Larry Pitzer.

"My house is already gone," cried Sonia Sanchez as she stood amid a blizzard of ash and smoke at the corner of Del Rosa Avenue and Marshall Boulevard. "The fire moved so fast that all we got out was my family and our cars."

Fanned by gusts of more than 50 mph, the blaze exploded into a two-headed firestorm that spread east through a neighborhood of half-million-dollar homes in Quail Canyon, and west to the campus of Cal State San Bernardino.

The Rim of the World Highway to Lake Arrowhead was shut down, as was a portion of Interstate 10 near San Bernardino for a time. A Southern California Edison spokesman said the blaze knocked out power to Running Springs, Crestline and Lake Arrowhead, and will be out indefinitely.

The San Bernardino fire also threatened several homes near the base of the Rim of the World Highway and authorities ordered the San Manuel Indian casino evacuated.

As flames headed west, a fog of heavy black smoke blew through Cal State San Bernardino, tripping fire alarms and triggering sprinkler systems throughout the campus. Sparks ignited small brush fires on the grounds and the recreation center caught fire. Officials ordered all dorms and buildings evacuated and canceled sporting events.

By late Saturday evening, bare chimneys stood amid smoking embers in some neighborhoods as police patrolled the streets for looters. At least three people were arrested when they were caught outside evacuated homes, police said.

The San Bernardino fire was first reported about 8:30 a.m. Saturday on Old Waterman Road and Rim of the World Highway. The California Highway Patrol a short time later reported that passengers in a gray van were allegedly seen flicking burning matches out the window as they drove toward Lake Arrowhead.

"We're aware of the van. It's being investigated aggressively," said San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy John Hernandez.

The San Bernardino Fire Department used every available city firefighter, along with several federal forest service crews, but they were overwhelmed, said Battalion Chief Jess Campos. Campos made a desperate appeal for help Saturday afternoon. Every fire crew in Southern California was spoken for, however, fighting other blazes throughout the region, he said.

"We've stripped all of California's resources," Campos said. "If anything else breaks in the forest, how do we fight it?"

The erratic path of the San Bernardino fire, fed by 50 mph gusts, was similar to that of the Panorama fire, which burned in the San Bernardino Mountains in 1980, destroying more than 300 homes and killing four people, Campos said. He said firefighters were worried late Saturday about the fire moving farther north into the mountains, where drought and bark beetle infestation have killed thousands of trees -- turning them into kindling.

Before the outbreak of the San Bernardino fire, firefighters had been battling a blaze that started five days ago in the steep and rugged foothills north of Rancho Cucamonga. The so-called Grand Prix fire, which was believed to have been intentionally started, had consumed 27,200 acres and destroyed 15 homes by late Saturday. By midnight, it had crossed into Los Angeles County and was threatening high-voltage power transmission lines that provide 25% of the power to the L.A. basin, state officials said.

After nightfall Saturday, the Grand Prix fire crept south from the foothills, jumped fire breaks, and burned several homes in the Alta Loma neighborhood of Rancho Cucamonga.

"Oh my God, oh my God, it's an inferno!" said Debra Kline, 52, as she, her son and a friend hosed down their home, which was surrounded by burning homes, trees and lawns. People ran for their cars as firefighters laid out hose lines. Embers fell from the sky.

Early Saturday morning, Rancho Cucamonga residents said they were alarmed by the fire's rapid progress, and watched as sparks set the surrounding hillside afire. Alex Rios, 36, and his wife, Teresa, 29, spent most of the night watching flames out the back window of their Sand Hill home.

"They were pretty far away, and all of a sudden came down into the backyard," Alex Rios said. "It jumped over the wall behind us into our backyard, and we just ran. We grabbed our snake, our kids, our toothbrush and our two dogs, and we got out of there."

A team of 20 firefighters in the area found themselves cornered by flames.

"All I saw was a wall of fire," said Jimmy Avila, superintendent of the Big Bear Hotshots fire crew. "It happened real quick. One minute, the fire wasn't there, the next second it was."

Six of his crew stepped quickly into the safety of burned ground, but the others were forced to run for cover. Two of the men suffered smoke inhalation and the third suffered second-degree burns on his face. All three were taken to a hospital and later released.

At Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga, exhausted firefighters coughed into their fists and rubbed bloodshot eyes. A dozen tried to rest on small cots.

"If you can't get to it, it's out of control," said Norco Fire Captain Don Willis. "And we can't get to it."

San Bernardino County Fire Department Assistant Chief Dan Worl painted a grim picture for several hundred residents gathered at Life Bible Fellowship Church in the San Antonio Heights area of Upland on Saturday afternoon.

Worl recounted how the fire had begun about 10 miles away in the Hunter Ridge subdivision of northwest Fontana before sprinting to the slopes just above their community.

"The fire is pretty angry. It's coming at us with everything it has. The firefighters are taking a beating," Worl said. "We have exhausted everybody, every firefighter and every resource from Fresno south and are competing with fires from L.A., Ventura and elsewhere."

Authorities late Saturday closed Interstate 15 between Devore and the 210 Freeway.

As firefighters battled flames in the San Bernardino Mountains, fire crews in Los Angeles and Ventura counties fought wildfires that consumed more than 10,000 acres and threatened homes in Simi Valley and Moorpark. A fire south of the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Moorpark swept through a mobile home park and destroyed six trailers. There were no reported injuries.

The fire threatening Simi Valley and Moorpark, began in Val Verde, near Santa Clarita, and jumped Highway 126. "It got away from us," said Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Steve Cookus.

Tom Barron and his wife, Barbara Wampole, were among the first to evacuate their home in San Martinez Grande Canyon, leaving behind a platoon of firefighters who surrounded their property. The fire "sounded like thousands of sails of ships blowing, like fabric," Wampole said.

The fire burned into the night.

With a convoy of cars piling up behind them, more than a dozen motorists parked and stood on the First Street overpass of the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley about 8 p.m. to watch the flames.

"It's majestic," said Roger Breithaupt, 55. "It's definitely something to see. We lived through a similar situation 10 to 12 years ago."

By early Saturday, the Lake Piru fire in Ventura County had spread to 1,250 acres and a voluntary evacuation was in effect in Piru, an unincorporated community of about 300 residents. The fire was whipped by strong winds out of the northeast and spread far into Los Padres National Forest.

Authorities there reported no structures burned and no injuries Saturday. Fire officials said that steep, rugged terrain and low levels of humidity were making it difficult for firefighters and hand crews to get an upper hand on the fire, which was only 30% contained and expected to burn for several days.

In San Diego County, a fire believed to have been sparked during a weapons exercise at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base on Tuesday continued to burn Saturday and had consumed roughly 4,700 acres. Just 55% contained, the fire has moved to within a mile of ranches in De Luz.

The smallest Southern California fire was burning northwest of Santa Barbara in Los Padres National Forest. The 250-acre blaze was 40% contained by Saturday afternoon. No buildings were lost, fire authorities said.

Southland Wildfire Coverage Contributors:

The following Times staff writers contributed to the coverage of the wildfires:

Hector Becerra, Daren Briscoe, Jose Cardenas, Amanda Covarrubias, Cara DiMassa, Jessica Garrison, David Haldane, Allison Hoffman, Shawn Hubler, Steve Hymon, Dan Morain, Monte Morin, Joel Rubin, Tony Perry, David Pierson, Lance Pugmire, Charles Ornstein, Louis Sahagun, Doug Smith, Wendy Thermos, Janet Wilson, Sue Fox and Holly Wolcott.

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

13 Die, 700 Structures Are Lost to Wind-Driven Flames

By Louis Sahagun, Joel Rubin and Mitchell Landsberg

LA Times Staff Writers

A crescent of fire continued to rage through Southern California on Sunday, destroying hundreds of homes, claiming at least 11 more lives and throwing the entire region into an eerie, smoky half-light.

A searing Santa Ana wind blew flames over mountain slopes like an incandescent hurricane, burning more than 500 homes and bringing the fires' two-day toll to more than 700 buildings. The combined fires stretched over 250,000 acres -- about half the size of Rhode Island -- in an arc from Ventura County to the Mexican border.

More than 5,000 firefighters battled the infernos, at least two of which were believed to have been caused by arson. Veteran fire officials described them as the most awesome and unstoppable blazes they had ever seen. Weather forecasts call for high winds and heat today.

"It goes wherever it wants to go and consumes whatever it wants," Capt. Doug Johnston of the Kern County Fire Department said of one of the largest fires, in San Bernardino County. "It's humbling. There's only so much you can do with a wind-driven fire like this."

The fires did their worst damage, in terms of property loss, along the ragged fringe of mountain slopes where suburbia meets the wilderness -- a classic Southern California landscape that has long lured people to build homes in forest and brushland despite the likelihood that they eventually will be threatened by fire.

"This is our worst nightmare," said Tricia Abbas, a spokeswoman for San Bernardino National Forest. "This is everything we didn't want here: Santa Ana winds, dead forest, high temperatures."

"It was lush," Donald Carpenter said as he surveyed the charred remains of his 2 1/2-acre hillside garden in Claremont. "Now it's ash." And Carpenter was lucky: The fire stopped just short of his house.

At least nine fires in six counties disrupted the lives of untold thousands. In San Bernardino County alone, 40,000 people were evacuated. The fires:

* Caused delays and flight cancellations at Southern California airports after flames forced the closure of a major air traffic control center near San Diego.

* Closed numerous highways, including portions of Interstates 15 and 215 in San Bernardino County, re-routing drivers returning from Las Vegas.

* Forced the closure of hundreds of schools in many areas today, including Cal State San Bernardino.

* Halted rail traffic through the Cajon Pass, one of the main freight thoroughfares connecting Southern California ports with the rest of the country.

* Prompted warnings against outdoor exercise throughout Southern California.

Gov. Gray Davis declared states of emergency in San Bernardino, Ventura, San Diego and Los Angeles counties. He also asked President Bush to declare a federal disaster area for much of Southern California, clearing the way for federal assistance.

"Our hearts go out to you," Davis told evacuees who stayed overnight at San Bernardino International Airport. "I know what it's like to have to leave your home." Davis was referring to the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which damaged his West Hollywood condominium.

Davis said Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger will be in Washington on Tuesday, and will lobby for federal assistance. A spokesman for Schwarzenegger said the governor-elect was receiving regular briefings from Dallas Jones, the head of the state Office of Emergency Services.

The most deadly of the fires rampaged through dry brush in northeastern San Diego County. At least 11 people died in the Cedar and Paradise fires, most trapped in their cars as they tried to flee. The worse of the two, the Cedar fire, also destroyed about 50 homes in Ramona and the Scripps Ranch and Tierrasanta neighborhoods of San Diego.

More destructive in terms of property loss were twin blazes centered in San Bernardino County. The two converged Sunday when the Old fire, the more easterly of the two, jumped the 215 Freeway near Devore and touched the Grand Prix fire, said Norm Walker, a division chief with the U.S. Forest Service.

The two fires created a contiguous band of more than 60,000 blackened acres from Claremont in the west, where fire crews managed to gain control over the firestorm, to Running Springs in the east, where the blaze continued to burn out of control between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear. A smaller fire destroyed homes in Crestline, raising fears that one or another of the fires could sweep unchecked through the popular resort communities around Lake Arrowhead, where fire officials have been sounding alarms for years about a buildup of brush and dead trees.

Another major fire raged in Ventura County, charring at least 90,000 acres of hillsides and rangeland, destroying or damaging eight homes and prompting evacuation of a county jail and neighborhoods in Fillmore, Moorpark, Santa Paula and Simi Valley.

At one point Sunday, the fire approached the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, but eventually was beaten back without causing any damage there. Other, smaller fires charred brushland in Chatsworth, Malibu, parts of Orange County and the remote Riverside County community of Sage, near Hemet. The Sage fire scorched 3,000 acres and destroyed six structures.

San Bernardino/L.A. County Fires

In the parking lot of the San Bernardino County Fire Department's Devore Station No. 2, firefighter Tom Pitts watched Sunday as a wall of flames raced toward him. "It has been kicking our butts," he said of the fire.

Pitts was asked whether anything could stop it. "No," he said, "not without this wind stopping."

The Old fire, which began early Saturday, allegedly by an arsonist, swept with breathtaking speed as it headed north into Devore, a roadside hamlet near the intersection of the 15 and 215 freeways. Firefighters made an aggressive attempt to stop the forward progress of the fire, with at least 15 water drops from helicopters on the front edge. They used helicopters because the winds were too strong for fixed-wing aircraft, which can carry more water.

The initial efforts failed, but by late Sunday, fire officials said they appeared to be making modest progress in stopping the advance of the fire.

Brian Scroggins, 30, stood on the fender of his truck, parked in the driveway of his small house in Devore, as he watched the fire come down off the hills and approach his neighborhood. He was alternating between urging on the helicopters -- "Come on guy, get on that, get on that!" -- and praying. "God," he beseeched, "I don't want to lose my house. Save my house, Lord, please save my house."

Scroggins had to hold on to the truck to prevent 50 mph winds from blowing him off as the neighborhood became enveloped in ash and smoke.

Not far away, in the foothills above the 215 Freeway, was a lunar landscape of charred ground and the skeletons of burned trees. The Old fire had destroyed more than 450 homes from the El Cajon Pass to Running Springs by Sunday night, officials said.

Firefighters said their biggest problem was the obvious one: high winds. But beyond that, the weather patterns also were producing an unusually shifty and unpredictable fire, they said. Late evening humidity, among the usual allies that firefighters rely on in California, was nowhere to be found. "Mother Nature is playing games with us," said Capt. Wayne Parks of the California Department of Forestry's Tulare unit.

By midafternoon, the eastern edge of the rustic community of Crestline on Rim of the World Highway was ablaze. At least 25 homes had been destroyed in the fire, which was near, but distinct from, the Old and Grand Prix fires. Arson was among the possible causes being investigated.

"This is our worst nightmare," said Tricia Abbas, a spokeswoman for San Bernardino National Forest. "This is everything we didn't want here: Santa Ana winds, dead forest, high temperatures."

The fires displaced, at least temporarily, thousands of people, at least 450 of whom crammed into a small hangar at San Bernardino International Airport that had been converted into a refuge.

The smell of ash and body odor permeated the air of the hangar, where scores of green Army cots covered with dark gray blankets had been placed in rows. Some of the displaced came with their own pillows. One cot was spread with a pink Disney Princess blanket.

The concrete floors were sticky from spilled soda and coffee, donated by restaurants and churches. Boxes with pepperoni pizza, packets of cupcakes and bottled water lay scattered across folding tables in an old office that had been turned into a concession stand.

San Bernardino Mayor Judith Valles arrived at the shelter with bad news. "I want to warn you that in the city of San Bernardino we have 300 to 400 homes lost," she told a crowd at the center, as gasps filled the air. She said the city would provide a list of damaged homes later.

Firefighters with 30 or more years experience said the combined San Bernardino fires are the worst they have seen, said Greg Cleveland, a spokesman for the fire forces' central command. "This fire will most definitely be a historic one," he said. "It will be referred to for many, many years."

Firefighters from nearly every county in California are fighting the fire, authorities said.

San Diego County

Residents of northern San Diego County awoke Sunday to wind-whipped flames racing toward homes and news that two major brush fires had broken out over night. It was soon clear that few, if any, firefighters were available to stop the advancing flames.

Eleven people were reported killed by the fires by late Sunday, including two children, bringing the overall death toll from the Southern California fires to at least 13. Two people died Saturday in San Bernardino.

As some homeowners tried Sunday to fight the flames with garden hoses, San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy pleaded for residents to flee. "Your life is more important than your house," he said.

By late Sunday, 175,000 acres had burned in fires in the northern part of San Diego County and near the U.S.-Mexico border. About 300 homes were destroyed or damaged.

Dark, greasy smoke drifted for miles, casting a pall over much of the county. Lindbergh Field, the city's international airport, was closed. Thousands of homeowners were ordered to flee. The American Red Cross set up several evacuation centers, and the Navy opened its bases for military personnel routed from their off-base homes.

As the fires raged, a small plane crashed on California 163 while trying to land at Montgomery Field. The pilot, who survived, indicated that he became disoriented by the large amount of smoke in the flight pattern.

In the parking lot of Qualcomm Stadium, where 5,000 people were urged to take shelter, people looked northward at the dark smoke that covered the neighborhoods they had just been forced to abandon. Tonight's Chargers football game against the Miami Dolphins was moved to Tempe, Ariz.

Frustration began to set in from a lack of information. Rumors spread quickly. Many people had the same story: Their dream homes were going up in flames. "It was burning in a beautiful new neighborhood," said Bill Fitzpatrick, who fled with his wife, pictures and two dogs. His wife hurriedly packed her wedding dress, but in the rush to escape the flames had left it behind.

Ventura County

In Ventura County, firefighters fared better than elsewhere, successfully defending many neighborhoods by day's end.

Still, six mobile homes were destroyed and another eight homes at least partially burned.

At the fire's westernmost point in Santa Paula, flames popped like boiling grease as they scorched bamboo in the Santa Clara River bed, sending coyotes scampering for cover and threatening houses on the river's edge.

By Sunday night, at least 600 firefighters had joined the fray. A fire near Fillmore and one approaching Rocky Peak at the Los Angeles County line appeared threatening to residences, and crews were shifted to halt movement toward homes.

Throughout the day, a smoky sky rained ash on nearly all of populated Ventura County, as the so-called Simi fire spread in all directions.

The Ronald Reagan Freeway was shut down Saturday afternoon, and fire crews dispatched to Rocky Peak worked frantically to keep the blaze from skipping over the Los Angeles County line and into an exclusive housing development.

As evening approached, and fire reached the doorsteps at the sheriff's Todd Road Jail near Santa Paula, deputies transferred 821 inmates in secured buses and vans to the Central Jail in Ventura

And a separate fire near Lake Piru that began Thursday and had been burning north into steep terrain in Los Padres National Forest did a turnabout and began racing southwest toward Fillmore late Sunday afternoon. The fire, which crews had mostly contained hours earlier, had burned more than 10,000 acres by nightfall, U.S. Forest Service officials said.

Sheriff's spokesman Eric Nishimoto said that, overall, Ventura County fared relatively well considering the scope of its fires and the tinderbox dryness of its terrain.

The Ventura County fire, compared with the San Bernardino area, burned primarily in open grazing land and undeveloped areas.

But as the day wore on, he said, fire and law enforcement crews were struggling to keep ahead of the blaze as it grew in every direction, virtually encircling Simi Valley.

High winds pushed the Simi fire westward over brush-covered hill toward Santa Paula, where residents rushed to save homes, barns, livestock and crops.

At a wood barn where children in 4-H and Future Farmers of America keep their livestock, more than a dozen youths, parents and teachers worked to evacuate the animals.

Santa Paula High School agriculture teacher Alex Flores arrived at the barn just as flames were cresting South Mountain and racing toward the barn. After loading 10 steer and 30 sheep onto trailers, Flores tried to hustle volunteers out. But retired truck driver and FFA parent Terry Weaver refused to leave.

"I told the kids I'd save this place, and that is what I am going to do," Weaver said as he wet down the wooden structure with a hose.

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

By Paul Pringle

LA Times Staff Writer

Their house would collapse in a smoking ruin, and tears would stain their faces for hours afterward, but at least they had the family pictures.

"That was all we took," Miguel Mejia, a security guard in his 30s, said as he wiped his eyes.

On Sunday afternoon, he and his companion, Carmen Romero, sat in their Toyota 4-Runner across the street from what remained of their hilltop home above Claremont. Embers still blew off the gutted structure. The melted hulk of Romero's Lexus looked like it was fused to the driveway.

The couple had fled Saturday night with their two children, 14 and 3, when a wildfire charged up the canyon behind their home.

"Just the pictures," said Romero, her voice trailing off to a sob.

Throughout the multi-front fire zone, hundreds of Southern Californians confronted the same panicky predicament -- which possessions to scoop up in mid-evacuation -- and pictures seemed the first choice.

If there had been time to hustle out anything else, it was likely to be another keepsake: Love letters from half a century ago. Leftover wedding invitations. A potted redwood sapling from the forest where a father's ashes had been scattered.

The practical-minded also managed to bundle up insurance policies, mortgage documents, birth certificates and wills, even unpaid bills.

"We got all our pictures, and then some important documents and our suitcases," said Jill Evans, 36.

She was balancing her year-old daughter on her hip in the gymnasium at Claremont High School, where the American Red Cross set up a shelter Sunday. Her 4-year-old son clung to his father, Joe Evans. The family had 15 minutes to leave their Padua Hills home in Claremont.

"We actually played this game last year," said Joe Evans, 43, referring to a near-evacuation when a brush fire threatened the neighborhood. "So we had all the pictures boxed up."

The trove of images now filled much of their SUV. There were shots from a Hawaii vacation and a scrapbook of ancestral pictures dating to the 19th century.And they had plastic storage bins stuffed with framed squiggles and swatches -- their son's school paintings -- and a couple of his toy cars and some clothes.

"Oh, and you know what? I also grabbed all our wedding stuff," said Joe Evans. He listed the old invitations, the ceremonial candles and the bride's veil. "It was in the garage."

His wife beamed: "You get big kudos for that!"

They thought about what they might have missed. "One thing I wish I did pick up in our son's room ... " Jill said.

"His rosary?" Joe said, finishing her sentence. "I got that."

But he didn't get the cross that was a gift to their daughter from her godfather. "I blew that one," he said.

The Evans' neighbor, Martha Paglia, also inventoried what was left behind. "All night I was thinking. I was going through the house in my mind," she said.

The low-slung, largely glass-walled home is a creation of famed architect Richard Neutra. Martha's husband of 43 years, Domingo, is an architect who once worked with him.

They said losing the 1959 house would have been a tragedy, but not on the order of losing their pictures. The Paglias fled with 4,000 slides and photos of themselves, their children and their friends.

"It's all of our life," said Domingo Paglia, 70.

Among the belongings he had left to the fire's mercy were his own paintings and fabric collages, brightly colored works that adorn the walls.

That wasn't what nagged, however, as they waited out the evacuation at a friend's house.

"I was thinking about pictures of my mom," Martha Paglia said. They were not with the 4,000.

She did remember to take her and her husband's wills, and the letters they had exchanged during their courtship.

The couple returned Sunday to find their house in good shape, although the fire had burned right to the patio, scorching the back garden. Next door, the Evans' home also had had a narrow escape; a pile of lumber at the edge of the yard was smoldering.

"It was so close," said Domingo Paglia.

Delores Doty and Lisa Tessari felt the same way. The mother and daughter, with Tessari's 12-year-old son in tow, hurried from their La Verne home early Sunday morning.

"You think of all these things, and there's no way in the world you can gather up everything that means something to you," said Doty, 73. "You just have long enough to grab your clothes and run around in circles."

Doty took her baby book. Tessari ran out with the potted tree, the memorial to her father, who died in August. His ashes had been spread over a redwood grove near Crescent City.

The family spent much of Sunday sitting in Doty's 1989 BMW below Live Oak Canyon, waiting for the all-clear. Their two cats were in travel cages in the back seat.

Just last week, Tessari and her son had moved back to La Verne from Alberta, Canada. Many of their possessions were still in shipping boxes.

The three had to fit everything in the BMW trunk. So they collected insurance policies, mortgage documents, birth certificates and the month's bills -- and what they knew they couldn't live without.

"I got pictures," she said. "Pictures of my dad."

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

By Scott Glover, Jack Leonard and Megan Garvey

LA Times Staff Writers

LAKE VIEW HILLS ESTATES -- The phone woke Joe McLean shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday and outside he saw the red glow of flames in the hills surrounding his rural San Diego County home.

He woke his daughter and wife, then alerted a few neighbors. Up and down the winding canyon roads, residents were waking to the smell of smoke and the noise of barking dogs and honking horns.

With no help from fire crews and no instructions from authorities, families packed up cars, and others set out on foot. There was only one way out: Muth Valley Road.

Neighbors in this tight-knit community just south of the San Vicente Reservoir had only minutes to make choices. By dawn, four who lived on the street would be dead, and half the homes would be destroyed. On Monday, the survivors told their stories.

The McLeans had the best vantage point in the hilly neighborhood of 10 custom homes. They could see towering flames closing in and wasted no time collecting possessions.

In three separate cars, the McLeans were the first through the neighborhood's security gate about 3:15 a.m.

Concerned the electricity would fail and the families would be trapped, Bob Daly, 75, had opened the gate when he got word of the fire from McLean. Then Daly headed back home.

Along the bending Muth Valley Road, fire rose as high as the neighborhood's towering pine trees. Joe McLean, 46, trailed his wife and daughter, raising his hand as he drove to shield his eyes from the heat. He worried that heat would melt the plastic windows in the ragtop Jeep driven by his 18-year-old daughter Jennifer.

Rodney Weichelt, 35, and his father, Bob, 59, were close behind. They could see McLean ahead. Embers pelted Rodney Weichelt's van, sounding to him like machinegun fire. He dripped with sweat.

At his home up the road, Stephen Shacklett, 55, corralled his four Irish wolfhounds, got them into his RV and drove toward the gate. His girlfriend, Cheryl Jennie, 59, was still at the house, planning to leave soon in her own car.

Natalie Corbett, 39, was in the neighborhood that night to housesit. She called 911, and the operator told her she was on her own. Corbett asked if she should leave. The operator said to go if she thought she could make it.

Corbett loaded her dog into her Bronco and fled past the gate, driving through a curtain of fire. A fallen cable was stretched tight across the road and flipped her truck, sending it skidding. Surrounded by flames, the Bronco resting on its side, Corbett wrapped herself and the dog in a sunshade and prepared to die, sucking on a wetted washcloth she had brought with her.

Other families were still at home.

The Hamiltons -- Steve, his pregnant wife, Jodi, and their toddler son -- had decided to take two cars. At first they could smell smoke but couldn't see even a glow. Hurrying but not frantic, they began packing collectibles and photo albums. Steve Hamilton, 43, took their 2-year old son Alexander in his car. Jodi Hamilton, 38, put their boxer, Libby, in hers.

Larry Redden, 64, had awakened at 12:30 a.m. to the smell of smoke. Redden, who retired last year after three decades with the San Diego Fire Department, walked out on his deck to check on the fire, then went back to bed. He and his wife, Laureen, 44, woke again when McLean called. The Reddens roused her parents, who lived with them, and got ready to leave.

The Shohara family -- James, Solange and their grown son Randy -- were the newest family in the neighborhood. At their home near the gated entry, they too prepared to flee.

About the same time, Bob Daly and his wife, Barbara, 67, pulled out of their driveway.

By 3:30 a.m. the Hamiltons, Reddens, Shoharas, Dalys and Cheryl Jennie formed a six-car caravan through the entry gate. With Redden leading, they were stopped by wall of fire. The families turned around and headed home, wondering what to do next.

At their expansive Spanish-style home, Steve Hamilton, vice president of a construction company, began moving vehicles and equipment out of the garage as his wife and son waited. Jodi couldn't understand why Steve was wasting time. Nearly hysterical, she woke up her mother in Connecticut to tell her the fire was close. Her mother, who had visited before, told Jodi to take her son and head for the nearby reservoir. Leave Steve behind if you have to, she advised.

The Dalys conferred with the Shoharas, who were walking toward a dirt road to the reservoir. I don't think you should go down there, Bob Daly told them, it's too rough a road.

Solange Shohara told him they were going anyway.

Minutes later, the Dalys considered following. They walked in the same direction as the Shoharas, but after taking a look down the access road, his vision blurred by smoke, Bob Daly made a decision.

No way, he told his wife. We're going back to the house to jump in the pool.

Jennie cast her lot with the Reddens and followed them back to their tiled-roof home. You look like you know what you're doing, she told the retired firefighter.

Larry Redden, drawing on his years of experience, decided defending the house was the best way to survive. While his in-laws, wife, neighbor and dogs huddled in the living room, he donned his old firefighting gear and poured water from the pool around the perimeter of the house.

The others held out hope that help was on the way. Larry Redden leveled with them: They've written us off. We're on our own.

Jodi Hamilton decided to take her mother's advice. She got into her husband's car, planning to head to the reservoir. Her husband said they would never make it. He had another plan: They would drive to a dirt flat near their house and try to dodge the flames in their SUV.

He hosed down the SUV, and drove to the flat, racing the vehicle back and forth, trying to stay away from the fire. In the backseat, Alexander, shrieked: "Hot. Hot."

"You couldn't see -- the smoke, the ash," Jodi Hamilton said. "It looked like hell or what I pictured hell to be."

The Dalys had gotten back to their house to find it already in flames. Fully clothed, they plunged into the pool. Bob Daly urged his wife to keep bobbing underwater so embers wouldn't ignite her hair.

As fire burned everywhere, they began a running dialogue about what they could hear exploding: the propane tank, the windows. The fire got too hot to bear. They jumped out of the pool and ran across the street to an area the fire had already passed through.

Up the street, the flames came too close for retired firefighter Redden to keep wetting down his house. He joined the others inside. The fire roared. They could hear it rushing over the roof.

"We just watched it come and prayed," said Laureen Redden. To her mother, Judy Bloomfield, it was "just this horrible roaring wind. There is nothing like it."

Jodi Hamilton was also surrounded by fire. From her car, she placed another call to her mother. I don't think we're going to make it out of here, she said. They said their goodbyes.

Then almost as suddenly as it had descended, the fire passed. The Hamiltons were alive. It was about an hour after they and the others had first turned back from the gate.

Bob Daly and his wife surveyed the destruction. At dawn he began to walk the street to check on the others. He had last seen the Shoharas, the newest neighbors, on foot, heading to the reservoir. But down the block, he saw their car, a melted shell, with two bodies inside. He dialed 911. They told him they would send paramedics. He told them to send the coroner.

About 100 yards away, Daly discovered another body, the Shoharas' son Randy.

When Jodi Hamilton learned of the deaths, she thought her family would have died too if her husband hadn't stopped her from going to the reservoir. After taking their chances dodging the fire in their car, the Hamiltons returned to find their home spared.

Outside the gate, along Muth Valley Road, Larry Redden found the burned-out shell of Stephen Shacklett's RV and a body inside.

Natalie Corbett was on the road, too. She had been certain she would die after her car overturned. She had tried to doze to escape the pain. At dawn, she was finally able to see well enough to find her cellular phone. She dialed 911 again. This time paramedics came, smashing a window to free her and her dog.

On Monday, Joe McLean said he was grateful to be alive but tormented by a sense that he had not done enough to warn the others. A general contractor, he had helped build the Shoharas' home last year. But in the frenzy, he had not called them.

"The thing that haunts you... " he said, standing outside his home, his eyes welling with tears. "Had I remembered, had they known five minutes earlier, maybe they would have gotten out."

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

By Stuart Pfeifer and James Ricci

LA Times Staff Writers

"This is the history of my life," she said. "It's all my memories. Everything in my house had a story. I just hope I don't get Alzheimer's and forget them all, because all my pictures are gone."

EL CAJON, Calif. -- After an absence of 33 years, ravenous wildfire came calling again on Crest Drive, selecting which homes it would devour as capriciously as it had the last time.

Some houses it spurned on its last visit, in September 1970, it consumed this time. Some that it consumed then, it spared now. And, as in the case of Judi Richardson's home, some that it destroyed before, it destroyed again.

Crest Drive is a short street, scarcely a quarter-mile long, that runs north along the southeastern edge of Crest, a tightly woven mountain community of 2,100 blue-collar and middle-class people east of here. On Sunday, fire destroyed 21 houses on the street, leaving 16 homes and little St. Louise de Marillac Catholic Church standing.

On Tuesday, Richardson stood in the roasted adobe shell of her 2,200-square-foot house on the street's west side picking, discouraged, through the charred rubble and broken roof tiles in what had been her living room.

Across the street, on the east side, the brick fireplace chimneys of 11 houses the fire had burned to the ground stood like a row of tombstones. The view east from the ruins, in better times a stunning vista of the Dehesa Valley and the Laguna Mountains, was obscured by thick smoke hanging from a brown-gray sky. The water in one neighbor's ravaged swimming pool looked like cola with bobbing chunks of blackened wood.

Richardson, a 58-year-old dental hygienist, marathon runner and world traveler, had lost everything -- the rugs from Turkey and Tibet, the ceramic ginger jar from China, all the antique furniture she'd collected, the 1963 Porsche in the garage, the 25 years' worth of running medals and the blanket one of her patients had fashioned out of her many running-event T-shirts.

"This is the history of my life," she said. "It's all my memories. Everything in my house had a story. I just hope I don't get Alzheimer's and forget them all, because all my pictures are gone."

She'd done her best, she said, to prevent this from happening to her house again. In 1970 she had just bought the place and was having it remodeled when the first fire came and erased it and about 100 others in Crest.

She hadn't even moved in or gotten the place insured. So, when she had it rebuilt, courtesy of a low-interest government loan, she'd insisted on 22-pound adobe blocks for the exterior and three-quarter-inch Spanish tile for the roof. "How could I do any better?" she asked. "I tried to think of the most fireproof materials."

Two houses up on the west side of the street, 59-year-old Richard Askey wondered why his place was spared when Richardson's, the house between their houses and the house on the other side of him, had succumbed. Askey's house was unscathed except for windows cracked by the heat on both stories of the house, and partially melted vinyl window blinds on the second floor.

Like Richardson's, Askey's house had burned down in 1970, and, like Richardson, he'd rebuilt it to be fire resistant, with tan brick and tile roof. Like most of the neighborhood's residents, Askey had been evacuated Sunday afternoon as the latest fire approached. A neighbor who'd stayed, however, said two firetrucks kept the place doused with water.

"They found one they thought they could save," Askey guessed. "You have a shake roof, and they let it burn."

Wildfire had a way of giving newcomers on Crest Drive an infernal welcome. Askey, his two children and his pregnant wife, Beverly, had been in the house for only a month when it was destroyed in 1970. They hadn't even made a mortgage payment. For a year afterward, the family lived in a trailer.

And Askey's current neighbors to the immediate south, between him and Richardson, had moved in just a month ago. Their house burned Sunday, too, just as it had in 1970. The couple and their 10-year-old son were so new to the neighborhood that Askey hadn't yet learned their names.

Across the street, on the east side, Arlon Christensen's house, and that of his son Butch, were among the ruins marked by the chimney-tombstones. When he'd bought his home in 1971, Christensen knew fire had visited the neighborhood the previous year, but the houses on the east side of Crest Drive had been spared, and, in any case, "I walked out on the deck on the porch and looked at the view and I said, 'I want to live here.' I didn't even go inside."

After the family's first holidays in the house, Christensen replanted their Christmas tree in the frontyard. It grew to 60 feet. During that time, Christensen's son grew up and bought the house next door. The grandchildren could walk out their kitchen door to their grandparents' house.

On Tuesday, both houses were gone, and the erstwhile Christmas tree was a giant, charred corpse.

Despite what they've lost or stood to lose, neither Richardson, Askey nor Christensen plan to abandon Crest Drive. "I'll rebuild," Richardson said. "What else can I do? My family is here. My social life is here."

Askey said, "I didn't think a second fire would happen. Lightning's not supposed to strike twice. But for the next 20 to 25 years, you're safe. Should be the rest of my life."

Christensen vowed, "I'd never move off the hill. Never. There's not a greater place to live than out here. People, once they move up here, they just don't leave."

Askey's 25-year-old son, Bob, was going to be the exception.

He'd just sold his home on Eucalyptus Drive, a block west of his parents' place, in order to move his grading business to Arizona.

The house was in escrow when it burned down Sunday. Wildfire on Crest Drive apparently has also an infernal way of saying goodbye.

The younger Askey, his father said, has since decided not to move, but to rebuild and remain in the community where his parents and two adult siblings live. After all, there will be a lot of construction work in Crest in the weeks and months ahead, a great need for grading contractors.

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

Firefighter Dies Near Julian; 350 Homes Burn in Arrowhead

By Christine Hanley, Rone Tempest and Hector Becerra

LA Times Staff Writers

Firefighters battled desperately Wednesday to stop wildfires from destroying two beloved Southern California getaways, Lake Arrowhead and the historic mountain town of Julian, east of San Diego. One firefighter was killed, bringing the death toll to 20 after five days of the fires, which are now the largest in modern California history.

While there was progress in taming some of the 10 fires that have engulfed a broad arc of the region from Ventura County into Mexico, the blazes in the San Bernardino and Cleveland national forests continued to bedevil an exhausted army of firefighters.

By evening, crewshad managed to keep the infernos from overtaking Julian, an old gold mining town some 40 miles from San Diego, and much of Lake Arrowhead, the century-old resort on a man-made lake in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Still, about 350 houses were destroyed on the east side of Arrowhead, and strong winds created dangerous conditions Wednesday night that forced the evacuation of many firefighters.

Erratic wind gusts, some as high as 70 mph, sent flames in unexpected directions, not only frustrating efforts to douse them but sometimes engulfing and endangering fire crews. By late evening, strong winds were blowing the fire away from Arrowhead -- but toward another popular destination, Big Bear Lake.

Said Tricia Abbas, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service in the San Bernardino National Forest: "I can't decide if I'm on the Titanic, or whether everything is going well and I'm overreacting.

The National Weather Service predicted continued gusty winds for today but said the region was also likely to see higher humidity and might have some rain by the end of the week.

State officials were not yet predicting when the Old fire, now burning near Lake Arrowhead, would be contained, but said the Cedar fire, which attacked Julian, would be contained by the middle of next week.

The battle to save Julian took its human toll when four firefighters were overrun by flames in their firetruck in the nearby hamlet of Wynola. One died and the other three were burned, one critically, authorities said.

Steven L. Rucker, 38, a firefighter and paramedic from the Marin County town of Novato, died. An 11-year veteran, he is survived by a wife and two children. The most severely injured firefighter was identified as Novato Fire Capt. Doug McDonald. He was expected to recover.

"This fire has been nothing short of apocalyptic," said Janet Marshall, spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

State and local officials were still counting destroyed homes. The count stood at 2,605, with estimated losses exceeding $2 billion. Officials said 105,000 people had been evacuated from their homes at some point since the fires began.

The Cedar fire, at more than 250,000 acres, is now the largest on record in the state, surpassing the Matilija fire, which burned 220,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest in Ventura County in 1932 but did not destroy any homes or cause any deaths. Overall, the fires have covered about 675,000 acres, more than twice the size of the city of Los Angeles.

Besides the firefighter killed Wednesday, authorities in San Diego County found the body of a person apparently killed by fire in rural Alpine earlier in the week. Two others were found dead in the vicinity of the Barona Ranch Indian Reservation south of Julian.

To the north, firefighters in Ventura and Los Angeles counties battled fires that ranged over brushland from near the small town of Fillmore to the Stevenson Ranch subdivision near Santa Clarita. Smoke from the fires forced the closure, for part of the day, of Interstate 5, the state's main north-south thoroughfare, near Valencia.

Firefighters in some areas benefited from a change in weather patterns that allowed cooler, moist marine air into the region. A low-pressure system moving into the region is expected to bring winds out of the south and west, which could push smoke away from urban Los Angeles and San Diego but propel fires farther into the mountain communities around Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, weather officials said.

On the tarmac at San Bernardino International Airport, Gov. Gray Davis urged swift and severe punishment of the two arsonists believed to have set the Old fire in the San Bernardino Mountains. The blaze has caused at least four deaths, he noted.

"I think we should throw the book at them. They not only destroyed property, they destroyed dreams," Davis said before boarding a National Guard helicopter to tour the Lake Arrowhead area.

Arson is suspected in four of the fires plaguing the region, although no arrests have been made. A hunter has been cited for igniting the Cedar fire near San Diego, but he has not been accused of arson.

Davis also declared a state of emergency in Riverside County. He had previously declared emergencies in San Bernardino, Ventura, San Diego and Los Angeles counties.

The governor, soon to relinquish his office to Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, was reluctant to respond to criticism that he did not activate firefighting resources, especially air tankers, quickly enough in San Diego county and elsewhere.

"Let me be clear," Davis said. "I have marshaled all the resources of the state.... We're doing everything we can to put the fires out and put people's lives back in order.

San Diego

In San Diego County, the defense of Julian came after a disastrous night in which hundreds of homes were destroyed in the hamlets of Cuyamaca and Pine Hills. Shifting winds kept firefighters racing from one location to another.

No new structures were reported burned within San Diego city limits, however, and officials said the western portion of the Cedar fire, nearest the city, was largely contained.

The fire jumped a 50-foot-wide break on the south side of Julian on Wednesday morning, surprising residents who had been told they could return to their homes in a tree-lined canyon above the tiny town of Santa Ysabel, just north of Julian.

Residents standing at a nearby checkpoint watched in horror as the flames climbed a ridge toward their homes in Wynola Estates.

"We thought we had good news this morning," said Jack Riordan, a painting contractor who moved to Wynola Estates a few months ago. "We were led to believe we could go up and see our house, but it doesn't look good now."

Riordan, 25, and his wife, Marcy, 26, fled their home on Monday in their car with their important paperwork and wedding photos. They went to stay at her parents' home in Ramona. Marcy's parents had stayed at their home just days earlier when the fire burned parts of Ramona

"It's been hell," said Marcy Riordan, speaking through tears as fire engines raced by.

Their neighbors peered anxiously through the smoke-filled air toward the ridge.

"Your heart is racing because when all you see is the smoke you have this false sense of security that 'It's not going to get me,' " said Barbara Segni, 61. "And then you see the flames, and it's heart-wrenching. Everything you've worked for is up there and these flames are racing to take it all away. Right now we don't know if we have a home."

The tally of houses destroyed by the Cedar and Paradise fires in San Diego County exceeded 1,700, with damage assessment teams still unable to visit some scorched, smoldering areas to get a final count.

Even as other homes were being burned, owners of homes destroyed in the fires' first three days clamored to begin rebuilding. City and county officials promised to waive fees and expedite permits.

"There are people out there ready to clear their land and begin to rebuild," said county Supervisor Dianne Jacob. "We're going to help every way we can."

Within the San Diego city limits, relief was mixed with incredulity.

"People are asking 'Why us?' " said Michael McDade, a lawyer. "But this is a tremendously resilient city. When you hear the volunteer center say they've got more volunteers than they need, you know you live in a special place."

Thousands of property owners remained without electricity because of damaged or destroyed transmission lines. Hospitals treated many patients with breathing problems because of smoke.

The Navy resumed normal operations, but schools remained closed. San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy began planning with religious leaders for an inter-faith service Sunday to help the community cope with the trauma.

San Bernardino

For most of the past week, the main expanse of the Old fire, the name given to the blaze advancing through the San Bernardino National Forest, was south of Highway 18, the Rim of the World Highway. But Monday night, firefighters were struggling to beat down patches that had jumped the road. And before dawn Wednesday, the flames crossed the highway in two places and began a northward advance.

On the east side, the flames crossed the highway near Heaps Peak and descended into Hook Creek Canyon. From there, they burned through the community of Cedar Glen and northeastern Lake Arrowhead, destroying dozens of homes.

"The fire devastated the Cedar Glen community, just ravaged it," said Los Angeles County firefighter Dennis Cross.

To the west, the fire skirted Arrowhead, went past Silverwood Lake and headed north toward the high desert community of Hesperia. Firefighters appeared to have stopped the flames directly south of the lake, preventing, at least for the time being, an advance that many had feared would destroy the lakeside resort.

After taking on the blaze that jumped the highway near Heaps Peak, weary firefighters were forced to retreat to their vehicles.

"It's been a hell of a morning," said Dewey Rebbe, part of an elite New Mexico firefighting squad. "Winds pushed by the fire reached 70 mph."

At Arrowhead, the fire came within a mile of large estates surrounded by trees that have been killed by a bark beetles. In midafternoon, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Dennis Cross stood outside the Mountains Community Hospital, near the eastern shore of the lake, warily surveying plumes of dark smoke.

"What's also troubling right now are these erratic winds," he said. By midnight, the hospital was surrounded on three sides by fire.

Among the victories logged by firefighters was fighting off the destruction of the 500-acre Las Flores ranch, owned by Kentucky Derby-winning horse trainer Jack Van Berg. The high desert ranch, located at the head of the Mojave River in Summit Valley, is home to the oldest standing barn in Southern California, which was built in 1872. This barn is flanked by a dozen wooden farm buildings and large stands of cottonwood and plum trees.

Van Berg said fire closed in on the property Tuesday night, forcing him to retreat to a concrete powerhouse, where he convinced himself that his ranch was lost. When he emerged, the property remained intact except for several cottonwoods scorched near the Mojave River to the north. Eighty-five horses that Van Berg left grazing on his property also appeared to have survived the harrowing night unscathed.

Van Berg credited firefighters who surrounded his ranch and sprayed his buildings with fire-retardant foam.

"You have to thank the Lord that he is looking over us the way the fire was raging and rushing through us," said Van Berg as he fed his horses Wednesday afternoon. And, he said, "You have to give credit to the boys who came to protect us."

Ventura/Los Angeles

In northern Los Angeles County, wind-whipped flames threatened -- but appeared to be sparing -- about 150 homes hugging the Golden State Freeway just outside the Santa Clarita city limits.

Firefighters pounced on the advancing wall of fire at the Stevenson Ranch subdivision with waiting hose lines, halting flames within yards of recently built homes in the affluent neighborhood.

The flare-up was under control within an hour, as ridge tops continued to burn in a widening semicircle through the hilly area.

Fire teams were plagued all afternoon and evening by wind-borne embers that ignited several brush fires next to Interstate 5, only a stone's throw from large subdivisions within the Santa Clarita city limits.

Wind gusts of up to 20 mph actually helped, said Battalion Chief Bob Trowbridge of the Burbank Fire Department, because they blew the flames away from homes.

In a sign that things may be returning to normal, the Red Cross closed the last of its Simi Valley emergency shelters, at the Rancho Santa Susana community center. Since it opened on Saturday, the Red Cross had housed 139 people and served more than 4,000 meals, spokeswoman Cecilia Cuevas said.

Now the Red Cross will shift its efforts to providing clothing and money to fire victims.

"This is where the hard work begins," Cuevas said. "This is when we really provide direct outreach."

Meanwhile, crews battling a dogged 56,000-acre fire in the Los Padres National Forest said southerly winds were helping push the fire away from the towns of Fillmore and Piru. However, 400 homes on the edges of those towns were still considered threatened, and firefighters were still fighting the blaze.

To add to the jitters induced by fire in recent days, Simi Valley and San Fernando Valley residents experienced three minor earthquakes Wednesday. There were no reports of damage from the temblors, which ranged in magnitude from 2.8 to 3.6, in the mild-to-moderate range.

Southland fire coverage contributors:

Contributing to the fire coverage were LA Times staff writers:

Fred Alvarez, Hector Becerra, Patricia Ward Biederman, Miguel Bustillo, Stephanie Chavez, Carolyn Cole, Amanda Covarrubias, Richard Fausset, Sue Fox, Megan Garvey, Scott Glover, Anna Gorman, Gregory W. Griggs, Carla Hall, Christine Hanley, Daniel Hernandez, Steve Hymon, Daryl Kelley, Mitchell Landsberg, Jack Leonard, Caitlin Liu, Eric Malnic, Seema Mehta, Geoffrey Mohan, Monte Morin, Sandra Murillo, Tony Perry, Stuart Pfeifer, Gary Polakovic, Lance Pugmire, James Ricci, Joel Rubin, Louis Sahagun, Kristina Sauerwein, Ann M. Simmons, Doug Smith, Jocelyn Y. Stewart, Julie Tamaki, Wendy Thermos, Nancy Vogel, Spencer Weiner, Kenneth R. Weiss, Janet Wilson, Tracy Wilson, Nancy Wride, Nora Zamichow and Alan Zarembo.

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

By Geoffrey Mohan

LA Times Staff Writer

The fire broke over the mountain crest in sheets just before dawn Wednesday and whipped across the Rim of the World Highway like a cross-cut saw, foiling the plans of Fire Capt. David Shew. He ordered his 20-man strike team into their trucks and told them to roll up the windows and wait.

"A real honest-to-God firestorm," Shew said, punctuating his story every few minutes with a sharp exhalation and a shake of his head. "The engines were rocking back and forth."

In 17 years of fighting fire for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Shew had seen nothing like this: staring into what looked like the deepest reaches of an erupting volcano.

"With gloves on your hand, the window was still too hot to touch," he said. Outside the trucks, he said, "you would have died." It took 30 minutes for the fire to pass.

Since 3 a.m., tongues of fire had been making runs up the steep slopes of Highway 18, where Shew and his team had formed a line of defense for the mountain resort community of Lake Arrowhead.

The crew had been lighting fires in the tall, brown grass at the edge of the highway, hoping to burn off dry fuel and starve the unpredictable wildfire thousands of feet below.

"We knew it would come up on the road," Shew said. "But we wanted to see what we could do to minimize it."

It was 5 a.m. when Shew peered over the near-vertical edge and decided it was time to go. Fire was raging in a narrow ravine that funneled flames like a chimney.

Then he took a calculated risk, ordering his crew to retreat to a cut alongside the highway. It looked like a textbook safety zone, he said, a place to survive if they stayed in their trucks.

As the fire swept over them, Shew took out his digital camera and snapped a picture of another firefighter hunched in the front seat, staring at what looked like the inside of a blast furnace.

"It was more total awe and amazement," he said. "I felt we were safe. We weren't risking our lives, but to sit through that, with all that intensity -- I thought I'd been through some firestorms before, but nothing like that. I know this won't make the public feel any safer, but it makes me feel powerless.... I don't know how to fight something like that."

The fire then raced north across the top of Heaps Peak at 6,000 feet and descended into Hook Creek Canyon, along the eastern edge of town.

Standing about two miles north of Shew, George Cooley took one look at where the fire went -- down the narrow canyon off Lake Arrowhead's east shore -- and decided "it wasn't worth sending anyone in there." The San Bernardino County Fire Department battalion chief said it was too dangerous.

Down in the canyon, John Lucas, like Shew, thought he was prepared for the fire. The 38-year-old former wild-land firefighter had been preparing for days. The son-in-law of the late artist Charles Wysocki stood alone on the back lawn of the artist's compound, a collection of three Cape Cod cottages clustered around a New England-style main house.

Lucas had spent $26,000 for his fire defense. He had 3,000 feet of thick, canvas-cased fire hose laced through the backyard and into the street. He had gallon jugs of chemical foam lined up. He had a custom-made Glock strapped to his right hip in a black holster.

A month ago, Lucas cut down 50 pines killed by bark beetles. But the trees were thick on the canyon bottom, their branches arching over and scraping the wood-sided houses that lined the road every few hundred feet. His property was one of a handful with any clearance around it. The lawn was green. He figured he had a good chance.

About 9 a.m., Lucas sent a stream of foam onto the roof of the main house. Above it, the sky turned a muddy orange and smoke boiled across the horizon.

"I got a car, a bike," he said. "Worst-case scenario, I got a spot cleared out. If not, you'll find my charred body."

About a quarter-mile upwind, two homes had erupted in flames, their timbers sighing and wheezing. Flames arced through the crowns of trees with a freight-train whoosh.

The fire torched dead pines like wicks, pausing briefly on the tougher hardwoods, and tossing burning pinecones across the road. Three nearby houses were catching fire. A sign in front of one home that had so far been spared read: "It's never too late to follow your dreams. Don't give up."

No fire engines came down Hook Creek Road, and the fire moved closer to Lucas. Smoke grew so thick on the two-lane road that the yellow center stripe disappeared in the haze three feet in front of a car's bumper. Only the orange glow of burning homes, pulsing through the smoke, marked the way.

Shortly after 10 a.m., hours after overrunning Shew's crew, the fire reached Lucas' property and raced around the back side.

Lucas got into his black Subaru Legacy wagon and gunned it up the road.

"I'm overrun," he said. "If I had two more people, I could've beat it. There's nothing I can do."

For half an hour more, Lucas drove back and forth along Hook Creek Road. It was hard to leave the home the painter had built.

Wysocki's work depicted rosy-cheeked families in clapboard houses set in unspoiled landscapes. He put an American flag in every scene, and was a favorite artist of President Reagan.

Lucas' wife, Millie, and her family lived there for 37 years.

Lucas turned back to the family compound one more time and disappeared into the boiling smoke. One of the compound's outlying houses was burning. He returned 15 minutes later. A large canvas was in the back seat of his car. He'd retrieved a Wysocki painting hanging in a back room of the main house.

"This was one of the last pieces he did before he died," Lucas said.

He pulled it from the car and held it up proudly. It showed a pioneer house, a stream, a ship, set in a sylvan paradise. Behind him, flames burned up the hillside into the trees.

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

Some residents of a rural San Diego County community drove through flames to safety early Sunday, while neighbors perished.

By Scott Glover, Jack Leonard and Matt Lait

LA Times Staff Writers

LAKESIDE, Calif. -- At least 12 people killed this week in Southern California wildfires were from two rural San Diego County neighborhoods that survivors said received no warning from authorities.

When the Cedar fire reached residents here early Sunday, they had only minutes to flee. A dozen died -- some in cars, some huddled in homes and others trying to run for safety.

Eight victims lived along a series of dirt roads just outside the Barona Reservation. Neighbors told The Times on Wednesday that the dead included a 17-year-old high school student, her mother and the teenager's aunt, whose skeleton was found in a bathtub along with the bones of her dog.

"We feel really lucky," said Lonnie Bellante, who escaped with his wife and 11- and 13-year-old daughters. Four of his tenants and four of his neighbors died. "We got out with the most valuable thing, which is each other. The rest of it is not important."

Four people died in Lake View Hills Estates, a gated 10-home community a few miles west. Lakeside fire officials said they reached the entrance to the neighborhood about 3 a.m. Sunday, but were ordered to retreat before getting a chance to warn residents of the coming firestorm. Five homes also burned.

The fast-moving Cedar fire, sparked by a lost hunter Saturday afternoon, caught fire officials by surprise as it moved west about 15 miles from the Cleveland National Forest.

A spokesman for the reservation said the Barona fire station was notified of the fire about 2 a.m. Sunday by a California Department of Forestry battalion chief. He told the firefighter on duty that the fire would be passing through in 20 minutes, said Dave Baron, director of government affairs.

Baron said the fire station notified the reservation's casino and some nearby residents, but did not have time to notify Bellante and his neighbors.

Jon Smalldridge, who was spending the weekend at his parents' home near Bellante, said Wednesday that only the persistent barking of his dog gave him and his house guests enough time to escape the fire's path.

It also gave him a chance to save some of his neighbors.

Smalldridge, 42, of Arcadia, and his 18-year-old son, Shawn, had come to relax in country thick with trees and boulders. Smalldridge and his son spent Saturday riding motorcycles and target shooting. Jon Smalldridge's parents were away.

On Saturday evening, the Smalldridges watched the distant glow of the Cedar fire that had begun hours earlier in the Cleveland National Forest. Neither one worried, and they went to bed tired.

The dog's barking woke the household about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Outside, the smoke was thick.

Smalldridge drove to neighboring homes to warn residents. One of them was Molly Sloan, a family friend and a grandmother, who didn't want to go. She had bought her 14-acre ranch 28 years ago. Her property had four houses -- family members lived in three and renters occupied the fourth.

Smalldridge rounded up Sloan's three dogs -- Sasha, a boxer; Freckles, a mutt; and Osa, a lab -- and loaded them into Sloan's car. Then Smalldridge helped Molly Sloan into her car.

Mary Peace, Molly Sloan's daughter, followed in her own car. As they drove away, Mary Peace decided to check on neighbors and turned off the road.

Then Smalldridge, who owns an auto repair shop in Pasadena, and his son took off in their pickup. A car was stopped ahead. It was Molly Sloan's. Flames engulfed the road, 15 to 30 feet high, he said, whipped by 40-mph Santa Ana winds. Smalldridge slammed his foot on the brakes. He could not see inside Sloan's car.

"Dad, you gotta go. We gotta go. There is nothing you can do," Shawn told his father.

Smalldridge jammed his foot on the accelerator and sliced through a wall of flames. He couldn't see the road ahead. "I was driving by Braille," he said.

They reached a gas station by the Barona casino, and the firestorm surged past.

"We stayed in the car and watched the whole hillside go up," Smalldridge said. "Knowing there were still people who couldn't get out was pretty difficult. There was nothing more we could do."

After escaping the inferno, Jon Smalldridge at dawn agonized over whether to return to his neighborhood. He worried about Molly Sloan. But he also worried about exposing his son to a gruesome sight.

Smalldridge prayed. Then he turned the key in the ignition.

"I was mentally prepared for what I saw; I prepared myself to come back," Smalldridge said. "I ... was willing to accept the worst. Knowing there wasn't going to be any medical personnel, I prepared myself to help them."

As he approached the cluster of homes, Smalldridge drove up to a charred Toyota. The left front wheel was in a ditch. A skeleton sat in the passenger seat, with the remains of a dog by its feet. Twenty feet away, Smalldridge found another body.

"I knew it wasn't going to be pretty," Shawn Smalldridge said. "I just prayed that it was quick for them."A downed power pole blocked the road, and the Smalldridges continued on foot. They saw a blackened car in a field. A woman's body lay sprawled 30 feet in front of the car.

It was Galen Blacklidge, who lived with her husband a few houses away from Jon Smalldridge's parents.

At 6 a.m., Smalldridge met up with Lonnie Ballante. Ballante, his wife and two daughters had followed the same route as Smalldridge, but the fire turned them back. The engine quit and they had to leave their truck. Ballante's wife suffered the worst burns, with the flesh coming off her arms. Smalldridge drove the family to get help.

Molly Sloan had survived, having followed Smalldridge. Her daughter, Mary Peace, did not. Peace had turned off the road to check on neighbors. Minutes later, her escape was apparently cut off by flames. The 54-year-old former nurse must have returned to her house, speculated Mike Parsons, a relative of Sloan.

Relatives later found Mary Peace's remains in a bathtub. With her were the remains of her Chihuahua.

Nearby, in another house on the Sloan family compound, they found the remains of 17-year-old Jenifer Sloan, Parsons said. Her mother, Robin, is missing and presumed dead. Robin Sloan had worked at a nearby Wal-Mart. She had driven to the trailer of her former husband to warn him, family and friends said.

He was already gone, but Robin stayed to pack mementos, they said. Then, they believe, she drove back up to her house.

Jenifer Sloan, an El Capitan High School student, remained waiting at the house.

As the fire bore down, Jenifer was on the phone trying to wake neighbors. She also called a friend who begged her to evacuate. She told the friend she would not leave without her mother.

"They all died trying to save someone's life other than their own," Parsons said. "They all had their own vehicles. They all could have left at any time. You might say it was a family of heroes."

Times staff writer Nora Zamichow contributed to this report.

© 2003, Los Angeles Times

Cuyamaca is virtually burned away. Residents of the area must walk for miles.

By John Balzar

LA Times Staff Writer

CUYAMACA, Calif. -- This hideaway, bait-shop kind of village in the oak-and-outback of San Diego County entered our larger consciousness at the precise moment when it ceased to be.

On Thursday, after two days of fires, there was no town and there were few people. The ground was too hot to sift for memories. Live flames clung to the undersides of large branches. The road in was closed, endangered by falling trees and collapsing power poles.

Six miles to the north, nature still rampaged. Sixteen miles to the south, the California Highway Patrol blocked the way. "You can walk in, but you can't drive." That's what a patrolman told the evacuees of this gently sloped valley in the hills that San Diegans call the Cuyamacas.

There were 300 or so houses in this lakeside portion of the valley, perhaps as many as 400, plus attendant resort businesses. Debris blocked entry into the distant reaches, but from the road only two structures appeared to have survived: the volunteer fire station and the Lake Cuyamaca restaurant, general store and tackle shop.

Cuyamaca became famous when it was gone.

Not all of this stricken valley was so lonely, however. To the south, past the roadblock, evacuees hiked up the car-less Cuyamaca Highway -- California 79 -- toward the one-store, two-church village of Descanso. The faces of these residents were drawn in a grimace. Some had been told that their neighborhoods were spared. But, then again, they had heard all kinds of rumors in this unbelievable week. They wouldn't be easy until they knew.

Among the Descanso-bound hikers were Ivan and Mona Heckscher. She had grown up in this valley, married and brought her Danish husband here. Their home was once her parents' home. The two were evacuated at 3:50 a.m. Monday when the next ridge north ignited. On Thursday, they accepted a ride back. News reporters had been permitted to drive past the roadblock.

Anticipation was harrowing as the car wound up the slender roads.

Would this be a homecoming? Or not?

"There, turn at the mailbox! The next one!"

A homecoming it was.

Pumpkins still decorated the driveway. The red-washed wood planks of their cabin home were dirty with ash but unharmed. And there, look. The two kittens, Sadie and Silver, waited. They had run off when the urgent evacuation was ordered.

As shown on TV, tears are seldom contagious. In person, they almost always are.

"Come in, come in." The Heckschers insist. They apologize for the mess they left in the house. There was no electricity when they scrambled in the darkness to evacuate. And there is none now. There is no telephone service. No cell phone coverage. Almost no radio reception. A five-mile walk back to a car. Only stubs of candles remain in the candleholders. Mona searches for something to offer a guest. She presents the only thing at hand, a plastic pumpkin with Halloween candy.

It can be strange to strangers the terms that we set for ourselves, and then live by.

Ivan thinks of himself as the most cautious of people. Every morning when Mona leaves for work, he makes a note of what she is wearing.

Why? "You always hear on the news, when something has happened, and the police ask, 'What was she wearing?' " he explains. "No one ever knows. I know."

Yet they have endured three damaging winter floods in this home. And they knew an autumn like this one was bound to come. They talked about it. The trees that gave them cool shade and the brush that covered their valley like velveteen would someday be known as fuel. They figured that they were ready.

But Mona wasn't quite ready for that predawn nudge, and the firm voice of her husband.

"I didn't want to yell," he recalled, "so I just said, 'Honey, it's time to go.' "

"I can't get that out of my mind," says Mona, now fighting back more tears. "It just keeps coming back: You wake up and he's saying, 'Honey, it's time to go.' This house, these walls, they breathe with all the memories of what ... of all the ... everything.... Then it's time to go."

There is no struggle of emotions and no hesitation, though, when the Heckschers are offered the inevitable question. Will they stay?

"Of course," she says. "This is the very best place."

Ivan shrugs and adds, "Only crazy people live here." He smiles. For just a moment, there is something in the Cuyamacas to smile about.

© 2003, Los Angeles Times