SoCal wildfires force evacuations from Malibu to Mexico
By ALLISON HOFFMAN and GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writers
Monday, October 22, 2007
(10-22) 13:37 PDT SAN DIEGO, (AP) --
Wildfires fanned by fierce desert winds consumed huge swaths of bone-dry Southern California on Monday, burning buildings and forcing more than 265,000 evacuations from Malibu to San Diego, including a jail, a hospital and nursing homes.
More than a dozen wildfires engulfed the region, killing at least one person, injuring dozens more and threatening scores of structures. Overwhelmed firefighters said they lacked the resources to save all the threatened homes.
More than 250,000 people were forced to flee in San Diego County alone, where hundreds of patients were moved by school bus and ambulance from a hospital and nursing homes.
"It was nuclear winter. It was like Armageddon. It looked like the end of the world," Mitch Mendler, a San Diego firefighter, said as he and his crew stopped at a shopping center parking lot to refill their water truck from a hydrant near a restaurant.
"I lost count," he said when asked how many homes had burned.
The blazes in San Diego County and elsewhere erupted one after another over the weekend, each pushed across dry, drought-starved terrain by hellish winds that gusted over 100 mph.
Things got worse Monday, when several new fires sprouted and other fires merged, burning nearly 200,000 acres — or more than 310 square miles.
Parts of seven Southern California counties, including Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego, were on fire.
In northern San Diego County, hundreds of patients were evacuated from a hospital and nursing homes in the path of the so-called Witch Creek fire.
All San Diego Police Department officers and off duty detectives were ordered to return to work to help move people to safety and handle other fire-related emergencies.
Meanwhile, California officials appealed to fire agencies in other states for help.
As flames roared down on communities with amazing speed, firefighters complained that their efforts to stop them were delayed when they were confronted by people who refused to leave their homes.
"They didn't evacuate at all, or delayed until it was too late," said Bill Metcalf, chief of the North County Fire Protection District. "And those folks who are making those decisions are actually stripping fire resources."
Among the people who wouldn't leave was Ken Morris, who stayed at his rural San Diego County home to rescue his horses.
"I heard the cops come by and I just ducked," he said. "I had a beer and waited it out."
As conditions deteriorated, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the seven counties.
"Its a tragic time for California," he told reporters gathered in Malibu, where a church, homes and historic castle were destroyed.
One person died in one of the fires near San Diego, which burned more than 14,000 acres — or about 22 square miles — about 70 miles southeast of San Diego, just north of the Mexican border town of Tecate.
More than a dozen people were hospitalized with burns and smoke inhalation, including four firefighters — three were in critical condition — at the UC San Diego Medical Center Regional Burn Center, officials said. Some of the injured were hikers, and others may be illegal immigrants.
In the San Bernardino Mountains, mandatory evacuations were ordered in several communities where 1,500 homes were threatened by two blazes that had blackened more than 600 acres west of Lake Arrowhead and in the Green Valley area.
Firefighters said they were unable to send air power to the mountains because of the velocity of the winds.
At least one of the fires, in Orange County, was believed to be caused by arson, said Orange County Fire Authority spokeswoman Lynnette Round. It consumed about 8,800 acres was 30 percent contained.
A 1,049-inmate jail was evacuated because of heavy smoke, said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino. Inmates were bused from the James A. Musick Facility in Irvine.
In Los Angeles County, 25 structures in the suburbs around Santa Clarita were destroyed, Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief Glenn Massey said. That blaze, called the Buckweed Fire, had burned about 25,000 acres.
In San Diego County, where seven fires were burning, the Witch Creek Fire jumped Interstate 15 into the densely populated Rancho Bernado neighborhood as authorities ordered hundreds of thousands of residents to leave their homes. It merged with a smaller fire that broke out near the San Diego Wild Animal Park and moved toward the wealthy suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. By late morning, more than 35,000 acres had burned. Authorities said an untold number of homes were destroyed.
Black smoke blanketed much of northern San Diego and nearby suburbs as flames hopscotched around homes in the community of Rancho Bernardo, destroying one of every 10 homes on one busy street.
Dozens of motorists gathered on an Interstate 15 overpass in San Diego to watch flames race up a hillside and engulf at least a half-dozen homes. Witnesses said they watched flames jump west over the 10-lane freeway.
"The flames were like 100 feet high and it moved up the hill in seconds. It was at the bottom, it was in the middle, and then it was at the top," said Steve Jarrett, who helped a friend evacuate his home in the nearby suburb of Escondido.
Qualcomm Stadium, where San Diego Chargers practice was canceled Monday, was turned into an evacuation center for more than 10,000 people.
Mandatory evacuations were announced early Monday in the suburbs of Valley and Poway, adding tens of thousands of more to the numbers being forced to leave their homes.
Several structures were burned on the edge of town and sheriff's deputies called residents to alert them that the fire was approaching the city, San Diego sheriff's Lt. Phil Brust said.
California National Guardsmen assigned to the border were forced to evacuate one of their barracks and their troops were aiding evacuations, said Col. David Baldwin, director of operations for the Guard.
"The border is still secure, but agents are evacuating the threatened areas and the Guard is supporting that operation," Baldwin said.
In Malibu, about 700 firefighters worked to protect hundreds of homes in several upscale communities nestled in the hills. About 1,500 people were evacuated and the blaze destroyed a church and several homes, one of them the landmark Castle Kashan, a stately fortress with turrets and arched windows.
In many areas, the fires were like flashbacks. Between Oct. 21 and Nov. 4 of 2003, 15 fires in many of the same areas killed 22 people, destroyed 3,640 homes and blackened 750,000 acres.
Ten years earlier, in October and November of 1993, 26 fires in those areas killed four people and burned nearly 200,000 acres as 1,200 structures were damaged or destroyed.
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Associated Press writers Chelsea J. Carter and Jeremiah Marquez in Los Angeles, Jacob Adelman in Santa Clarita and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
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