The wildfires that ignited Sunday, Oct. 21, quickly spread around the entire perimeter of San Diego County, surprising residents who awoke the next morning expecting to begin their work week but instead saw flames or smoke creeping toward their homes.
Mayor Jerry Sanders urged San Diegans to refrain from driving and using their cell phones on Monday, a request that stood throughout the week. As several fires burned in much of the county, residents were forced to flee their homes while the Santa Ana winds pushed a thick layer of black smoke and ash to the coastline. By Monday evening, residents realized that the firestorms, created by hurricane-force winds mixed with flames, were not yet contained and would be like nothing they had ever experienced.
While the firestorms burned at the edges of the county, the strange Santa Ana weather conditions sent smoke west, settling into the coastal areas and creating an “extremely unhealthy quality of air,” said Marye Anne Fox, Chancellor of the University of California, San Diego. Because of the air quality and the uncertainty of the fires, UCSD shut down the campus for the entire week.
Officials with San Diego school districts announced that they too would shut down schools.
“Because of the fires, the mayor has asked everyone to stay home,” said Jack Brandais, media representative for the San Diego Unified School District.
In addition to the quality of the air, the fires are just too unpredictable, he said.
“We are trying to do our part,” Brandais said.
Many schools transformed into shelters for the more than half-million people who fled their homes.
All sports practices and scheduled games and matches have also been cancelled through the weekend, according to officials with the San Diego office of the California Interscholastic Federation. The games will not be rescheduled or made up, the CIF added.
In addition to schools, Qualcomm Stadium acted as a hub for the shelters, where people could drop off donations. According to Tiffany Sherer of Promote La Jolla, many La Jolla restaurants, including La Valencia, Beach House, Azul and the Brigantine Family, donated food to the refugees at Qualcomm.
The Del Mar Fairgrounds and Fiesta Island also became makeshift places for people with large animals to seek shelter.
Officials said tens of thousands of people came to Qualcomm on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, former Charger Miles McPherson, who now heads the Rock Church in Point Loma, stepped up with his ministry to help out evacuees with a posh set-up. The church, at 2277 Rosecrans St., converted its football field to house pets and supplied television and movies for displaced residents, along with hosting youth activities. As McPherson said, “I don’t know how we got all these supplies, but we got them.”
An assembly line formed outside the rear of the Rock Church on Tuesday as children and youth unloaded two city trucks full of blankets, pillows and other necessities brought over from Qualcomm.
“We contacted the press this morning,” McPherson said. “We sent out an e-mail, and now look, we have all this help.”
On a bulletin board, games and activities were highlighted.
“We have thousands of people here every Sunday,” said Rich Oldham, a Rock churchgoer. “This is what we do. We are good at organizing and we are so used to dealing with a large number of people ” that is why we are good at this.”
Up the coast, in Pacific Beach, Fiesta Island took in people with large animals, including horses that had to be evacuated.
David Bakke of La Jolla had to rescue two of his painted horses from a Del Mar stable.
“The volunteers here have done a great job,” Bakke said. “They have brought a water truck by every hour, supplied us with these large white buckets for watering the horses, hay, and vets have come by regularly.”
The people caring for their livestock were not left out, Bakke said. People offered food such as fried chicken and pizza. The toughest part was trying to sleep on the island. Bakke and his wife slept in the back of their truck while watching over Skylark, their mare, and Dandy, their gelding.
Nearby, some San Diegans waited with their pets on Ski Beach. Kai Murphy evacuated her home in South Escondido, along with her two dogs and birds. She waited until a room at Paradise Point was ready to take her and her animals.
“The intelligent thing to do is to leave, but I wanted to stay,” she said. “I came here after being evacuated in 2003 and stayed in a room with my animals.”
Murphy left her home unscathed with all her animals, but when she stopped to rearrange her birds, one flew away, only to become a meal for a red-tail hawk. Still, her attitude was one of optimism.
“I’ve got friends staying with their horses, but no trailers,” Murphy said. “If they have to, they are going to euthanize them.”
As of Wednesday, six people died of causes associated with the fire. The Santa Ana winds were letting up, but gusts of up to 20 miles per hour were expected to remain in many parts of the county. The Witch Creek Fire, the largest in the county, consumed nearly 200,000 acres and was not contained. That fire merged with the Poomacha fire, which began on the La Jolla Indian Reservation. The Rice Fire in Fallbrook was also out of control, but firefighters began to get some level of containment on the Camp Pendleton Fire and the Harris Fire, which were at opposite ends of the county.
While residents on the coast, including Del Mar, were let back into their homes, other residents continued to receive evacuation orders. According to Jennifer Kerns, press secretary to California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, any homeowners ordered out of their homes can claim two weeks of hotel expenses under California insurance laws. Poizner also said that, during crises like these, scam artists come out of the woodwork to take advantage of people who have lost their homes, including some contractors.
“Salespeople often go door to door … to generate new business,” the commissioner said. “While many of these people are honest and reputable, some are not.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the opening of four centers to assist people affected by the fires. The centers, in Rancho Bernardo, Fallbrook, Ramona and Rancho San Diego, will be running by Friday, officials with Schwarzenegger’s office said.
“The people of California are going to rebuild, and we must do all we can to help these communities recover,” Schwarzenegger said.
The four centers will be run by the Office of Emergency Services. For more information, visit www.oes.ca.gov. For more information about state contractors, call the contractors state license board, (800) 321-2752. The insurance site is at www.insurance.ca.gov, and the hotline is (800) 927-HELP.