South State Infernos
By Ryan Lillis, Dorothy Korber, and, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.
Oct. 22–MALIBU — Southern Californians were reminded Sunday that living in paradise carries a price, as wind-driven wildfires blistered the thirsty landscape from Santa Barbara County to the Mexican border.
Seven major fires, none of them contained, had burned more than 33,000 acres by Sunday evening. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed a state of emergency in seven counties from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
Firefighters were bracing for the worst as hot weather, low humidity, dry brush and the relentless Santa Ana winds spread the flames at breathtaking speed.
“We’re expecting even worse conditions in the next few days — hotter temperatures and more gusting winds,” said Daniel Berlant of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention. “More fires will be popping up. Hopefully, we’ll have the personnel in place to fight them.”
In Malibu, 1,500 residents of the upscale coastal enclave were evacuated in the face of the first major fire there since 1993. Fourteen years of growth and several years of drought have turned the brush into perfect kindling, officials said.
Not everyone evacuated, even though they were ordered to. A couple on Malibu Crest Drive decided not to leave their home. They were sleeping inside it Sunday night when a fire crew parked its rig in their driveway to watch over them.
The husband fired up his electric generator to brew a pot of coffee for the firefighters.
He said his family had made it through the big fire of 1993, had cut defensible space in the brush around the house and decided not to evacuate.
Even with the brush cleared, though, a wayward ember could still ignite the house, said Capt. Dennis Cross of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
“They’ve been through this kind of thing before, so they’re fire-wise,” Cross said. “But these homes are never out of harm’s way.”
Sunset spread a weird glow through the thick smoke Sunday evening, with the ocean’s surface reflecting the orange haze above.
As darkness fell on Malibu, the blazed dubbed the Canyon fire had burned more than 2,200 acres, destroyed five houses, three businesses and a church. Five hundred homes were threatened, said Inspector Edward Osorio of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Osorio spoke as firefighters headed into the dark mountainous terrain above Malibu, hoping to get ahead of the blaze during the night, when the humidity rises and winds are expected to diminish a bit.
“The night is key,” Osorio said. “We’ll do as much as we can, but we’ll be limited. All it takes is one ember, and we can start losing homes all over again.”
Osorio said wind gusts were expected to hit speeds between 40 and 70 mph over the next few days.
Some firefighters were being dispatched from Malibu to join the 250 firefighters on the 10,000-acre Agua Dulce fire in northern Los Angeles County near the Ventura County line. There, 800 residents have been evacuated and 3,800 homes are threatened.
Two of Sunday’s biggest fires were burning in southern San Diego County, said Cal Fire’s Berlant. He said 640 firefighters were battling those two blazes, with more help on the way.
One is the 14,000-acre Harris fire, outside the city of Potrero. One person died in that fire and 10 civilians were injured, plus four firefighters whose truck was consumed in flames. They were airlifted to a San Diego burn center.
The Witch fire, along Highway 78 near Witch Creek between Ramona and Santa Ysabel, had burned more than 5,000 acres, Berlant said. It’s in the same general area as the disastrous Cedar fire of 2003, which was the second-largest wildfire in California history, according to the state fire spokesman.
In the Angeles National Forest near Interstate 5 and the Templin Highway, the Ranch fire consumed 1,500 acres Sunday. Two smaller fires also burned uncontained in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
With the Northern California fire season now over, Berlant said, upstate firefighters and equipment have been dispatched to help their beleaguered colleagues in the south, Berlant said.
“Basically, we say that the Southern California fire season begins Jan. 1 and ends Dec. 31,” he said.
The Sacramento Fire Department has sent a strike team of five engine companies and two battalion chiefs, Capt. Jim Doucette said. That team is made up of firefighters from the Sacramento Fire Department, the Sacramento Metro Fire District, Folsom Fire Department, and the Cosumnes Community Services District.
The ferocity of Sunday’s blazes came as no surprise to fire officials, who began moving personnel and equipment from Northern and Central California into place on Friday and Saturday, Berlant said.
“This is kind of a typical situation when we have these Santa Ana winds blowing aggressively — in those conditions, any ember can cause a large fire,” he said. “There’s a misconception that a wildfire is a growing circle. But a wildfire is spread by embers that can fly a mile ahead of itself. That one little ember, with the dry conditions, can start a whole new fire.”
A demonstration of that was evident a few yards from Malibu City Hall on Sunday afternoon. With no flames anywhere in sight, an airborne ember suddenly ignited a storage shed and then spread to a greenhouse.
At nearby Pepperdine University, students were awakened at 6:30 a.m. and evacuated from their dormitories as the flames approached.
Tommy Dinsmore, a 22-year-old senior from Granite Bay, said he and others were moved into the school’s cafeteria and gymnasium for several hours. Dinsmore said students were “at first a little startled, then they became more frightened, a little more nervous and a little more tense.”
By midafternoon Dinsmore and his friends had moved to an apartment seven miles north of campus. He said there was no power either at the campus or in the apartment.
There was no damage to the Pepperdine campus by late Sunday afternoon, and strike teams were standing by to protect buildings. Students were allowed to return to their dorms. All classes today have been canceled.
One of the first buildings to be destroyed was the Malibu Presbyterian Church, which caught fire about 7 a.m. More than 13 hours later, all that remained was the ash-covered foundation, still spewing embers into the stiff wind blowing toward the ocean.
The sign board in front of the church was unscathed, however, with this bleak message: “Join Us for Sunday Worship.”
The wildfires were fueled by dry heat and “hurricane-force” winds, which raced through wind-prone mountain passes at 80 mph. (Hurricane-force winds are defined as winds greater than 74 miles per hour.) The Los Angeles Times reported that gusts hit 108 mph on Sunday at Whitaker Peak near Castaic Lake.
The National Weather Service has issued a red-flag warning through Tuesday for strong northeast gusts and low humidity for Southern California mountain areas, Ventura County, most of Los Angeles County and the interior valleys of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.
Meteorologist Steve Goldstein said the conditions are the result of classic Santa Ana winds. A strong high-pressure system building above the Great Basin area over Utah has combined with the upper levels of the atmosphere. When the winds heat up, they rush down the mountains even stronger, Goldstein said.
“The wind is very dry, and humidity is much less than 15 percent, ” Goldstein said. “It’s not a good situation.”
By Ryan Lillis, Dorothy Korber, and Lakiesha McGhee
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