Californians endure 7 days of wildfires

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 911 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, eating through the communities of Rancho Bernardo, Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe, Poway — taking out multimillion-dollar estates and modest ranch homes.

‘Strong winds are expected’
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’s San Diego Chargers, was opened to evacuees in a scene reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina. 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 911.

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.

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: