Californians endure 7 days of wildfires

updated 4:15 p.m. ET Oct. 27, 2007

SAN DIEGO - 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.

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.

This used to be ...

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.

MORE FROM CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

California Wildfires Section Front

Charges mulled for fire-starting boy Calif. fires added to warming emissions Newsweek: Inside the minds of fire starters Newsweek: Calif. insurance firms twice burned HD views from California wildfires California wildfires: Your stories Newsweek: Katrina comparison avoided California Wildfires Section Front   Add California Wildfires headlines to your news reader: