Seven Days Of Fury

Fires Cut A Weeklong Path Of Destruction And Devastation Fueled By Ferocious Santa Ana Winds

(AP)  Crane awoke early Monday and looked at the clock: 4 a.m. He smelled smoke coming through his bedroom window, but when he got up to shut it, he heard something on the street below. A car honking, he thought. He peered outside.

Rancho Bernardo's Lancashire Way, Crane's home for 20 years, looked like an erupting volcano.

"We gotta go!" he yelled to his wife, Sherry, still in bed. "Now!"

Their neighbor's wooden fence was ablaze, the palm trees in front of that house igniting like matchsticks. Glowing embers shot horizontally across the street. To the north and east, a line of flames lit up the ridge near a subdivision called The Trails. To the south, Battle Mountain, directly behind Crane's home, went up like a Roman candle.

Terrified neighbors roused one another with phone calls and knocks on the door, driving past police officers who cruised a nearby street, shouting through bullhorns, "Evacuate! Now!"

Elsewhere across San Diego County, reverse emergency phone calls alerted residents to fires that had gone out of control overnight. In a day, the Witch Creek Fire grew from 3,000 acres to 30,000 acres, eating through the communities of Rancho Bernardo, Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe, Poway - taking out multimillion-dollar estates and modest ranch homes.

The biggest evacuation in California state history was just getting started. Some 560,000 would be forced from their homes in San Diego County alone. Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL football team the San Diego Chargers, was opened to evacuees in a scene reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans two years ago. The Del Mar Fairgrounds and schools housed others.

At the Weather Service office, Gonsalves arrived just after 6 a.m. to start his regular shift. He saw the smoke hanging low out the window, the line of cars snaking down West Bernardo Drive. Three hours later, the forecasters received a reverse emergency phone call.

They, too, packed up and decamped.

By nightfall, more than 500 homes had already been demolished in San Diego County. Two fires that began just that day in the mountain vacation haven of Lake Arrowhead would destroy 300 more. Elsewhere across California, more than a dozen fires were now burning, incinerating 374 square miles in seven counties.

And Monday afternoon, this warning from the Weather Service: "Strong winds are expected to redevelop tonight."

The wrath of the Santa Anas was far from over.

---

All the chatter on the radio was about San Diego. But Zeulner and his crew had their own firefight to deal with - for 4½ hours Tuesday afternoon near Piru, after a blowing ember landed in steep vegetation.

They had spent much of their time doing structure protection: clearing away brush and moving wood piles stacked next to wood-sided homes, work homeowners themselves should have done in this drought-stricken state. The Ranch Fire, 1,000 acres when Zeulner first got the assignment, had grown to almost 40,000 acres.

But he was proud that his crew had yet to lose a home.

In San Diego, Crane could not say the same. Tuesday, watching the news with his son at a friend's house where they'd taken refuge, he saw a reporter walking up and down Lancashire Way. Flames still burned from the remnants of some houses.

"Twenty-five homes, on this one block ... have burned to the ground," the reporter was saying.

And, then, he started reading off house numbers.

For a moment, Crane and his son thought they didn't hear 18626. Then: "635 ... 629 ... 626 ..." the reporter said.

Crane and his boy, whose own family lived a mile away but whose house survived, looked at each other.

"Now we know," Crane said.

---

Over the next two days, such heartbreaking discoveries happened again and again across the region. At a blaze farther north in Santa Clarita, Don Benson found his house and prized 1957 Thunderbird in ruins. A neighbor drove by, sending a wish for better days: "I hope God is good to you." "I believe in him," Benson called back, "but sometimes it wears thin."

Zeulner, whose team late Wednesday was dispatched to San Diego to pitch in, escorted an elderly couple to their lost home in Escondido the next day. "We're sorry for your loss," he told them. "We're here to help." What else could he say?

Even as President George W. Bush arrived on Thursday, offering words of comfort, there was more devastating news: A 58-year-old mortgage broker and his 55-year-old wife, a teacher, were found in the rubble of an Escondido home. Another 52-year-old man died after refusing to leave his house during evacuations. The charred remains of four others, believed to be illegal immigrants, were found in the woods near the border. Authorities confirmed the deaths were due to the fires.

Word that at least one of the major blazes, in Orange County, was deliberately set spread further outrage.

And still more towns faced new evacuations, among them Julian, an apple-picking hamlet in the mountains northeast of San Diego, and Jamul, a community near the border where homes can go for a million-plus.

There was, however, one reason for optimism. By Thursday night, the ruthless winds that fueled the calamity had finally died.

---

Come Friday, Gonsalves and his colleagues were back at their computers at the weather office, swapping war stories in between work about their own fire encounters. The office was unscathed, but for the lingering stench of smoke.

Gonsalves was lucky; his family never had to evacuate. One colleague remained displaced from his home in Julian, though even that evacuation order had lifted by Saturday morning.

Zeulner was enjoying his first 24 hours off in five days, although, given the circumstances, enjoying hardly seemed the right word. He still had no idea when he might head home, or whether he'd miss a vacation to see his 5-month-old granddaughter.

And at 6 a.m. Saturday, he and his crew reported for yet another day of duty in San Diego.

He joked that he'd better at least be back by Dec. 28 - the day he retires from the fire department.

"I got in the fire service to help people," he said, his eyes reddening with tears because, despite so much loss, he believes he did help people this past week. "It's a good feeling."

At the remains of his home on Lancashire Way, Crane's eyes were noticeably dry of tears. Instead, there was a sense of optimism in him and the neighbors who flooded back to begin cleaning up, and returned Saturday to pick up more pieces. They exchanged hugs and "I'm so sorrys," talked about getting together, already, in the coming days to discuss rebuilding.

"Did I want to start over at this time in my life? No," 60-year-old Crane said. "But my family is fine. I'm fine."

Everything else, he said, "is just stuff. I can make it through this."

Like the soot-covered CorningWare dish, the ceramic salt shaker and his father's old circular saw that he recovered from the ashes - "little miracles," a neighbor called such precious finds, so desperately needed in a week of so few.

---

By AP National Writer Pauline Arrillaga

[iceman_1960]

"BRIMSTONE THUNDER & LIGHTING...MAYOR SANDERS keep embracing homosexuality...you no good BABYLONIANS"
- Posted by sunsetbillyb at 04:25 PM : Oct 28, 2007

hahaha

Was anyone"s wife turned to a pillar of salt on the way out of town ?

[mediapreachr]

Tune in next year around the same time...you see the same stories.Wild fires,because people are building to close to forests or inside,mudslides and get ready to pay now 10 bucks to park your car anywhere in the recreational areas-their budget just took a beating.

[mediapreachr]

I think snidegrass is just another type of bot.
It''s used to spam and for "scrolling" so the people''s comments look disconnected.

[usaprophet]

I want to tell you about another major fire. Our Constitution is on fire. And it''s currently being burned in Congress. See H.R. 1955, a.k.a., Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. I couldn''t believe it. Apparently, activists with Web sites are really begining to anger the elite insofar they are publically holding them accountable for their evil. Here''s a part of the bill, which passed the house on Oct 23, in spite of Congressman, Ron Paul''s opposition thereto. The right to free speech on the Internet is gone, my friends. Look it up for yourself, and weep for your country that our rights have eroded this far. Here''s a short excerpt from the bill''s DEFINITIONS statement: "The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism." Here''s another excerpt from the bill''s FINDINGS statement: "The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens." And guess who get''s to decide what is "terrorist-related propaganda?" You got it! The Department of Homeland Insecurity, an agency that''s answerable ONLY to The President. If Ron Paul isn''t elected, our country is doomed!

[tnt1954]

that''s allright michael t202 its a private joke.
an inside joke. do you know what an inside straight
is? many people do not believe in the existence
of hell. they think its all mythological nonsense.
do you see what i see on your crt screen? looks
fiery doesn''t it. ''hell'' has many meanings.
try looking it up in the dictionary. it is
used as a literary device also.

[tucano2]

Sure the winds helped the Illegal Aliens, including Al Queda types, secure near maximum destruction, as they had hoped when they lit off the brushfires. You don''t actually believe in coincidence, do you?

[billpl-2009]

Fires went out a few days ago.

Now it''s time for the media to go home as well.

We''re fine and don''t need all their silly "hype" reporting.

[michaelt302]

Snidegrass is either mentally ill, chronically illiterate, or a certified master of MIH(Methamphetamine Induced Haiku). Tell me, does anyone out there have a clue what he is trying to say in his rants, and what they have to do with this story or reality? Craziest man on the Internet.

[tnt1954]

in 1988 bill horn was elected to the county
board of supervisors for the 5th district of
north san diego county on a fast growth platform.
slow growth was smashed to smithereens. and it
was time to build, and build, and build, and build
some more, mostly with indian labour from all
over the world. cheap indian labour. and now
they own us, and so do the gambling casinos.
cause little by little they raised their price
of labour. kimosabe? indians. its okay tonto
don''t worry i''ll protect us. what you mean we?
sometimes sicilians are mistaken for indians.
chief morning star of apache nation has spoken.
although it is verboten. chieves have little
power in indian world. lowest is always highest.

[tnt1954]

do you think the indians are really serious general
custer? do you really think they think we should
vacate the americas, all of it, right this instant?
i think so captain reno. you mean, like all asians,
negroes, and caucasians and mestizos must Hike the
Big Trail? or die? i think so captain reno. but sire? i thought all indians were peaceful and
this was a paradise before we got here, and migrating
tribesmen of all colours, ethnicities and religions
and cultures and origins would live here in the
u.s.a. in peace. nice try reno, go bottle the water
we''re in for a long siege. and you thought the
battle of waco, texas was gonna be a long hot fall?
and spring, and summer and winter? on and on and
on and on and on. thanks general custer, i''ll
remember you when i open my lemonade stand. and
ya know sir, there will be no sugar sire, as you
ordered. just sourpuss lemon.