February 11, 2009 3:58 PM
- Text
Seven Days Of Fury
(AP)
They know what the winds can do. They forecast them. Fight the fires the winds fan. Ready for evacuations that, in years past, never came. They thought they knew, until seven days of fury began a week ago.
From almost the beginning, this Santa Ana was different somehow.
Meteorologist Philip Gonsalves recognized it when he saw the smoke through the picture windows of the National Weather Service station in Rancho Bernardo, closing in on the office itself. He had helped forecast the tempest: an ominous combination of strong gusts, low humidity and soaring temperatures. In weather speak: red flag fire conditions.
Fire Battalion Chief Tom Zeulner understood it, too, when en route to his first blaze of the week, his wife called to tell him five more had begun.
Dan Crane thought it was "situation normal," his words for the Santa Ana fire season that torments Californians every October through February, when blustery winds blow out of the desert. He's lived through a half-century of them, and never once had to evacuate - not even during the two-week onslaught of 2003, when fires burned 750,000 acres and killed 22 people.
This time, he awoke to neighbors honking and smoke wafting through his windows.
By Saturday, more than a half-million acres would be gone, 1,700 homes destroyed, with the damage surpassing $1 billion (euro700 million).
Stunned homeowners who just last weekend were setting out Halloween decorations and watching football would find themselves sifting through kindling and ash, mumbling things like: This used to be my kitchen. This used to be my bedroom.
Even a week after it all started, several thousand would remain evacuated as blazes burned on relentlessly.
There would be questions about prevention in the midst of persistent drought, lack of preparation in a fire-plagued state and whether resources were put to use as fast as possible.
But first, before all of that, came the winds.
They were different, undoubtedly, although no one could have predicted just how deadly and destructive.
Gonsalves is a man who usually takes things in stride, especially the weather, perhaps because he knows it so well. He knows how easily a fire can kick up when the winds get going, and computer models at work had predicted a nasty Santa Ana for days.
And so, on Sunday morning when he stepped out of church and sniffed smoke, he was hardly surprised.
"It's begun," he thought. "Here we go again."
The surprise came hours later, when Gonsalves arrived home from the gym and turned on the news.
Fires - plural - were everywhere:
The Ranch Fire, sparked at 9:42 p.m. the night before, racing through 500 acres some 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
The Canyon Fire, ignited at 4:50 a.m. in Malibu, forcing 1,500 people - even Hollywood's elite - to evacuate.
The Harris Fire, begun at 9:23 a.m. southeast of San Diego, exploding to 500 acres in just over three hours.
The Witch Creek Fire, burning at 12:37 p.m. in a mountain town northeast of San Diego, consuming 3,000 acres in two hours.
At the Weather Service office in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo, Gonsalves' colleagues watched as satellite images showed plume after plume of smoke roaring over a swath of Southern California. Their computers are programmed to display wildfire hot spots as little red squares. Red squares seemed to cover the lower half of the state.
By evening, the forecasters had to shut off the air conditioning to stop smoke from seeping into the office. Back at home, on his day off, Gonsalves was thinking about what to pack - just in case his own family had to flee.
Sunday was an off-day for Zeulner, as well. He, too, had gone to church, near his home in San Luis Obispo, and was having lunch when he got word: "You guys are going."
A battalion chief with the city fire department, Zeulner commands a 20-member strike team that operates five, Type 1 fire engines, ideal for defending homes and structures. The team, when called upon, can be dispatched anywhere.
They were summoned to the Ranch Fire, to help protect homes in the tiny citrus-growing village of Piru.
"Immediate need," Zeulner had been told. In other words: Get there fast.
By 2 p.m., the caravan of engines was on the road, Zeulner monitoring AM radio for fire updates. The 33-year veteran was alarmed by what he heard. Winds were gusting from 60 mph to 80 mph; in some places, they exceeded 100 mph.
"That's hurricane force," thought Zeulner, who knew from experience that anything over 60 mph was unusual during Santa Ana season.
When the team arrived at the fire, they were told to bed down and be ready to work at dawn the next day. Zeulner set up camp in a park under the smoky sky, but rest was hard to come by.
His sleeping bag rocked back and forth throughout the night, the mighty winds tossing him about like a leaf.
From almost the beginning, this Santa Ana was different somehow.
Meteorologist Philip Gonsalves recognized it when he saw the smoke through the picture windows of the National Weather Service station in Rancho Bernardo, closing in on the office itself. He had helped forecast the tempest: an ominous combination of strong gusts, low humidity and soaring temperatures. In weather speak: red flag fire conditions.
Fire Battalion Chief Tom Zeulner understood it, too, when en route to his first blaze of the week, his wife called to tell him five more had begun.
Dan Crane thought it was "situation normal," his words for the Santa Ana fire season that torments Californians every October through February, when blustery winds blow out of the desert. He's lived through a half-century of them, and never once had to evacuate - not even during the two-week onslaught of 2003, when fires burned 750,000 acres and killed 22 people.
This time, he awoke to neighbors honking and smoke wafting through his windows.
By Saturday, more than a half-million acres would be gone, 1,700 homes destroyed, with the damage surpassing $1 billion (euro700 million).
Stunned homeowners who just last weekend were setting out Halloween decorations and watching football would find themselves sifting through kindling and ash, mumbling things like: This used to be my kitchen. This used to be my bedroom.
Even a week after it all started, several thousand would remain evacuated as blazes burned on relentlessly.
There would be questions about prevention in the midst of persistent drought, lack of preparation in a fire-plagued state and whether resources were put to use as fast as possible.
But first, before all of that, came the winds.
They were different, undoubtedly, although no one could have predicted just how deadly and destructive.
Gonsalves is a man who usually takes things in stride, especially the weather, perhaps because he knows it so well. He knows how easily a fire can kick up when the winds get going, and computer models at work had predicted a nasty Santa Ana for days.
And so, on Sunday morning when he stepped out of church and sniffed smoke, he was hardly surprised.
"It's begun," he thought. "Here we go again."
The surprise came hours later, when Gonsalves arrived home from the gym and turned on the news.
Fires - plural - were everywhere:
The Ranch Fire, sparked at 9:42 p.m. the night before, racing through 500 acres some 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
The Canyon Fire, ignited at 4:50 a.m. in Malibu, forcing 1,500 people - even Hollywood's elite - to evacuate.
The Harris Fire, begun at 9:23 a.m. southeast of San Diego, exploding to 500 acres in just over three hours.
The Witch Creek Fire, burning at 12:37 p.m. in a mountain town northeast of San Diego, consuming 3,000 acres in two hours.
At the Weather Service office in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo, Gonsalves' colleagues watched as satellite images showed plume after plume of smoke roaring over a swath of Southern California. Their computers are programmed to display wildfire hot spots as little red squares. Red squares seemed to cover the lower half of the state.
By evening, the forecasters had to shut off the air conditioning to stop smoke from seeping into the office. Back at home, on his day off, Gonsalves was thinking about what to pack - just in case his own family had to flee.
Sunday was an off-day for Zeulner, as well. He, too, had gone to church, near his home in San Luis Obispo, and was having lunch when he got word: "You guys are going."
A battalion chief with the city fire department, Zeulner commands a 20-member strike team that operates five, Type 1 fire engines, ideal for defending homes and structures. The team, when called upon, can be dispatched anywhere.
They were summoned to the Ranch Fire, to help protect homes in the tiny citrus-growing village of Piru.
"Immediate need," Zeulner had been told. In other words: Get there fast.
By 2 p.m., the caravan of engines was on the road, Zeulner monitoring AM radio for fire updates. The 33-year veteran was alarmed by what he heard. Winds were gusting from 60 mph to 80 mph; in some places, they exceeded 100 mph.
"That's hurricane force," thought Zeulner, who knew from experience that anything over 60 mph was unusual during Santa Ana season.
When the team arrived at the fire, they were told to bed down and be ready to work at dawn the next day. Zeulner set up camp in a park under the smoky sky, but rest was hard to come by.
His sleeping bag rocked back and forth throughout the night, the mighty winds tossing him about like a leaf.
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