Winds Ease As San Bernardino Fires Rage

Firefighters struggled desperately Wednesday to save emptied-out resort towns in Southern California’s San Bernardino Mountains as 200-foot walls of flame engulfed dead and dried-out trees.

The hot, dry Santa Ana winds from the desert that had been whipping the fires into raging infernos eased, only to give way to stiff breezes off the ocean that pushed the flames up the canyon walls around evacuated resort towns like Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear.

By early afternoon, homes were burning in the mountain community of CedarPines Park.

“There’s fire on so many fronts, it’s not even manageable at this point,” said Chris Cade, a fire prevention technician with the U.S. Forest Service, as he watched a pillar of smoke he estimated at 9,000 feet rise into a hazy sky thick with ash. “I am at a loss what you can do about it.”

The toll for all Southern California fires stood at 17 people dead, more than 620,000 acres burned and 1,800 homes destroyed. More than 12,000 firefighters and support crew were fighting what Gov. Gray Davis said may be the worst and costliest disaster California has ever faced. He estimated the cost at $2 billion so far.

The fires, which began last week, burned in a broken arc across Southern California, from Ventura County east to Los Angeles County and the San Bernardino Mountains and south to eastern San Diego County.

On Southern California’s other major front, about 100 fire engines encircled the historic mining town of Julian in the mountains of eastern San Diego County, hoping to save the popular weekend getaway community renowned for its vineyards and apple orchards.

However, some two dozen engines and water tenders that were headed to Julian were forced to turn back when flames swept over a highway. And as the winds picked up, floating embers sparked spot fires near the town of 3,500, forcing some crews to retreat.

South of Julian, about 90 percent of the homes had been destroyed in Cuyamaca, a lakeside town of about 160 residents. Charred cows lay by the side of the road and houses were reducued to little more than stone entryways.

“Everything’s kind of happening all at once. These fires are trying really hard to tie in with each other,” said Bill Bourbeau, a forest safety officer. “It’s tremendous.”

San Diego County fire officials feared a 233,000-acre fire and the 50,000-acre blaze would merge into a huge, single blaze that would make it nearly impossible to keep it from reaching Julian.

Officials in San Diego County – where most of the deaths took place – predicted the death toll would rise after investigators began scouring devastated neighborhoods.

A crew of U.S. Forest Service Hot Shots outside Julian was given an ominous warning by their team leader: If they came across any human remains, they were to cordon off the area until a medical examiner could get in.

“If we find somebody in the brush who took off running or whatever,” Capt. Fred Brewster told his 19-member team. “Who knows what you’re going to find up there? It’s a giant mess.”

In the San Bernardinos, the cool, moist ocean breezes confounded firefighters, just as the desert winds did over the weekend. Heavy winds kept aircraft grounded in the area, and winds gusting to 60 mph pushed flames up from the mountain slopes into the dense forest.

“They turned around with the wind and the fuel and basically overran us,” San Bernardino County Fire Division Chief Mike Conrad said.

Firefighters feared that the narrow roads and sheer number of dead trees, ravaged by drought and a bark beetle infestation, could make it impossible to protect some of the smaller communities in the area.

“It would be suicide to put anyone in there,” Conrad said.

Some 80,000 full-time residents of the San Bernardinos have cleared out since the weekend, thousands of them winding their way in bumper-to-bumper traffic out a narrow highway.

California Forestry Department incident commander John Hawkins told exhausted firefighters not to give up.

“We hear losses,” he said. “But the bottom line is we don’t hear how many were saved, how many of you put your name, your body, your heart on the line to save the houses.”

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Associated Press Writers Pauline Arrillaga, Kim Curtis, Ken Ritter and Brian Skoloff contributed to this story.