OT........Help from all over the country has arrived, now our Firefighters are getting some much need rest.
Worn-down Crews Pulled Off Fire Lines As California Infernos Rage Top Stories
October 29 4:05:00 AM EST
SAN DIEGO - Low on water, fuel and sleep, exhausted and overwhelmed firefighters were pulled off fire lines Tuesday in San Diego, even though raging infernos destroyed hundreds more homes and sent thousands of residents fleeing to evacuation centers.
Flames dotted an area that extended, on a straight line, more than 100 miles, from the Mexican border north to the suburbs of Los Angeles, threatening 40,000 homes. Despite a break in the hot, windy weather, firefighters pushed back a by a week their estimate of when the fire would be fully contained - Nov. 5.
Crews were able to stop the Verdale firestorm from spreading in Simi Valley and San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. But those successes were offset by blazes growing near San Bernandino and San Diego. There, some crews have enough resources only to save lives, not property, even though 10,000 firefighters are spread throughout the region.
At least 1,572 homes had been destroyed and at least 16 people killed as of Tuesday, with 80,000 residents forced out of their homes. Fire officials fear the death toll will rise as crews begin inspecting the remnants of charred homes and vehicles.
"This fire was so fast," said Glenn Wagner, San Diego County's chief medical examiner. "I'm sure we're going to find folks who simply never had a chance to get out of their houses."
In the 1991 Oakland Hills fire, east of San Francisco, 25 people died, 3,175 homes were destroyed and damage was estimated at $1.5 billion. Gov. Gray Davis said damages from the Southern California fires could hit $2 billion, making them the costliest in state history.
Late Monday, one fire erupted in Northern California, burning 1,500 acres and threatening 50 structures in remote eastern Shasta County. But it's the Southland where the nation's eyes are riveted.
"You couldn't have written anything worse than this," said Gene Zimmerman, supervisor of the San Bernardino National Forest, the area in which two of the most destructive fires began last week. "You can dream up horror movies, and they wouldn't be this bad."
While the hot, dry weather finally broke, many of the men and women battling the San Diego fires reached their breaking point after 55 non-stop hours on the front lines. Firefighters drove to nearby towns to gas up their vehicles and buy fast food. It may be a week before they gain the upper hand on these blazes.
"They're so fatigued that despite the fact the fire perimeter might become much larger, we're not willing to let the firefighters continue any further," said Rich Hawkins, a Forest Service fire chief. "They are too fatigued from three days of battle.
"There's blocks of homes that are going to burn to the ground. My objective is to make sure there's nobody in them."
San Diego's worst blaze, the Cedar Fire, had burned more than 206,000 acres and destroyed around 900 homes in a 45-mile long front, ranging from Scripps Ranch to Julian, a mountain community widely renowned for its apple crop.
Thus far, the worst hit community has been Scripps Ranch, a high-end suburb about 15 miles north of San Diego, where residents pay millions for canyon-view homes and enjoy what is billed by developers as a "country life." In this community alone, more than 300 homes have been leveled by fire.
The fire was just miles from merging with the 37,000-acre Paradise Fire from Valley Center, north of Escondido. Thirteen of the deaths came as victims tried to flee flames in those two fires.
More than 3,000 of the 10,000 firefighters in the region were battling the San Diego fires. But officials estimated they needed twice as many.
If the two San Diego County fires join up, it will complicate firefighting efforts by cutting off escape routes and even whipping up additional wind.
Barbara Morales escaped the fast-moving blaze that took her Scripps Ranch home and four others on the five-acre parcel on which she's lived for more than two decades. The flames were coming fast and the fireballs were as big as softballs. As she hustled her in-laws, both in their 80s, into the car, one of their walkers blew away in the winds. But she kept going.
"I just floored it," Morales said. "I didn't see the driveway, but I just went."
They escaped - just barely. And now, less than 24-hours later, Morales is steeling herself to go back. She has the photo album with her wedding pictures and her son's graduation shots. But she doesn't have her wedding ring.
"I have to go back and find the ring," she said. "That's the only thing I want."
Four days of wildfires have left this Southern California community reeling. Those who've lost homes have cried so much the tears no longer come. But many more are still on edge as evacuations continue. Fire fighters are doing their best, but on Tuesday, it seemed they were still making little progress.
People wear surgical masks as they go about their daily errands. By Tuesday, most stores had gone through their stock and volunteers at Red Cross shelters were scrambling to have supplies flown in from other areas. At the Longs Drug store in Mira Mesa, air purifiers were hot items - by late afternoon, all were gone. Surgical masks were nowhere to be found and store managers said they had no idea when new supplies would be coming in.
The 24-hour Kinko's declared it would close at 5 p.m. because of poor air quality. Most of the county's schools shut down. Even striking grocery workers suspended picket lines for two days, while members scrambled to save their homes or salvage belongings.
All day, the San Diego area was cloaked in a perpetual dusk. Smoke had snuffed out any sign of blue in the sky. At noon, drivers along I-15 drove with their headlights on. Along the I-5 along the coast, the smoke hung so heavy, drivers could barely see the ocean.
Many refugees had come from the San Pasqual Indian reservation in the hills above the town. Many had lost their homes.
Rebecca Williams was at work when the blaze tore through the studio home she rents from a friend.
"It was my quiet peaceful little hideaway," said the 43-year-old, who has yet to return to what's left of her place.
"I went up there and talked to a policeman last night," she said. "I asked him if my home was OK and he just put down his head and I knew."
But even amid the heartbreak there are stories of joy.
For three years, Lena and Tito Ortega, who also live on the San Pasqual Reservation, saved their money so they could build their dream home. They didn't have the money to hire a contractor, so they did all the work themselves. They were just three months from moving into the three-bedroom, 2,000 square foot home, when the evacuation order came down on Sunday.
"I prayed to God, `please God, we worked so hard, please don't take this away,'" Lena Ortega, 28, said as she stood at the evacuation center Tuesday. "My husband snuck up last night so he could take a look - and it was there, the house was there. Everything around it was burnt - there was a big black circle, but the house was there."
"I don't know how - it's like angels surrounded it and saved it," she said. "I thank God."
Near Los Angeles, emergency crews were aided by calm weather that included increased humidity, less heat and an end to the Santa Ana winds that had gusted up to 70 mph earlier in the week. That allowed water- and retardant-dropping aircraft and helicopters to make repeated runs on the fires.
But flames, raging as high as 50 feet in the air, still held the upper hand.
More than 90 miles away in San Bernardino County, the Old Fire and Grand Prix Fire, which merged earlier in the week, had jumped a highway and was moving as one contiguous wall of flames toward the mountain resort town of Lake Arrowhead. The town, which sits at an elevation of 5,100 feet, was left particularly vulnerable to flames by a beetle infestation that has devastated the surrounding trees.
Officials were particularly concerned about "crowning," in which flames leap from one treetop to another, leaving firefighters on the ground all but powerless to stop them.
"If that occurs we don't have the capability to put those fires out," U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Carol Beckley said. "It will be a firestorm."
---
(Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Kate Folmar and Putsata Reang contributed to this report.)
---
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
