Mass Evacuations Ordered As Wildfires Spread in Calif.

By Karl Vick and Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 23, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 22 -- Massive brush fires spread across Southern California on Monday, destroying homes from north of Los Angeles to south of San Diego, leaping freeways and sending hundreds of thousands of residents scrambling to flee their homes sometimes seconds ahead of advancing flames.

Fueled by gale-force desert winds and chaparral turned to tinder by the driest year on record, the conflagrations raged beyond the control of firefighters stretched paper thin rushing across the region from one fast-moving fire to another.

Some 300,000 San Diego residents were ordered out of their homes, making it the country's largest evacuation since hurricanes Katrina and Rita smashed into the Gulf Coast two years ago. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) declared seven counties disaster areas, mobilized the National Guard and asked for aid from neighboring states and the federal government.

But his state fire chief indicated that firefighters held little hope of containing the situation until unusually intense and prolonged Santa Ana winds abated, perhaps on Wednesday.

"With the wind blowing the way it is, it's very hard for us to get ahead of this thing," said Charles Maner, an official with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Officials identified between seven and 15 fires raging at midafternoon, from blazes that skipped down the canyons of Malibu on Sunday to far smaller but more destructive fires consuming hundreds of vacation homes around Lake Arrowhead to the east.

The numbers changed almost hourly as new blazes were called in and smaller fires converged to form larger, more dangerous blazes. By 1:30 p.m. automatic calling machines had dialed 80,000 San Diego residents, urging evacuation in "reverse 911" calls. A hospital, nursing homes and the Wild Animal Park were evacuated, as was the San Diego office of the National Weather Service.

Local television stations broadcast apocalyptic images of orange skies looming behind correspondents who gave their reports wearing surgical masks and ski goggles as protection from the sooty wind.

"You're trying to get stuff out of the house, but you can't leave the door open for one minute because the house will fill up with ash," said Rik Wadge, 47, who had been kept awake by the howling Santa Ana winds when a neighbor called to warn him out of his home in the Rancho Bernardo neighborhood San Diego at 4 a.m.

"I looked out around the corner, and the street was on fire. There was a house going up already. I saw trees burning. It looked like it was snowing. The air was so hot on the lungs you can't hardly breathe.

"I said to my wife, 'We are out of here -- now.' "

The pace and scale of it all alarmed even residents accustomed to the almost-routine hillside blazes during what in Southern California is called "fire season."

"It's the worst fire the state has ever seen," said San Diego Sheriff William B. Kolender at an afternoon news conference. He did not identify his measure, but there was wide agreement among residents and officials that Monday's blazes were more serious, if less deadly, than the 2003 conflagration that killed more than a dozen people. The reported death toll this week remained at one.

"We really have been experiencing a perfect storm -- a perfect firestorm -- in the last 24 to 36 hours," said Zev Yaroslavsky (D), a Los Angeles County supervisor. "A little wind makes a big difference."

The winds were the Santa Anas that routinely sweep into Southern California from the northeast and funnel through its canyons, gaining speed, heat and dryness as they descend and compress. "That's the proverbial Santa Ana or what us natives call the 'devil winds,' " said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "And so the devil winds are definitely living up to their nickname."

The gales that arrived over the weekend were unusual both in velocity -- a gust of 112 mph was recorded on Laguna Peak north of Los Angeles on Friday night -- and duration. Santa Anas will normally last a day or so; if the current winds fade on Wednesday as predicted, they will have lasted more than 72 hours.

Another ingredient is the 18 months of drought, which dried out the unusually lush growth that sprouted from an unusually rainy period that preceded it. The mix grew more combustible as the Santa Anas lowered humidity into single digits.

"They call it a desiccating wind," said Stuart Seto of the National Weather Service. "It's so dry it'll actually take moisture away from plants. And that's what we're seeing now."

The conditions led to widespread warnings of fire danger, but residents and officials alike were taken back by the swiftness of Monday's blazes.

"There was very heavy smoke all night long. The cat kept pawing at my face," said Susan Lorenzen, 55, a bookkeeper who found refuge at the Del Mar Fairgrounds north of San Diego. Another warning had come Sept. 1, when her insurance company canceled her coverage after judging that her home was too close to drying brush; she found coverage elsewhere.

Rick Crass, 54, said, "There was literally a house on fire in our street, so we just ran out with the clothes on our backs." Crass first sought refuge in a church in Poway, north of San Diego, until that evacuation center was ordered evacuated. He then joined several thousand evacuees at Qualcomm Stadium near downtown San Diego.

The scene inside the football stadium, where the Chargers play, was not much like the wretched scene in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Many evacuees arrived in RVs and family cars at the parking lot. In spots it resembled a tailgating party. When local radio put out calls for dog food, sunscreen and sandwich meat (bread was not a problem), residents responded by turning the stadium floor into a smorgasbord. Volunteers laden with grocery bags heaped tables with grilled chicken, chips and dog food poured into paper bags for individual portions. Evacuees gathered in the shaded sections of the lower deck, watching news coverage and munching sandwiches.

There was even a massage station manned by David Thomas, 36, who cancelled his appointments and summoned an acupuncturist for volunteer duty.

"We're kind of like the holistic first responders," Thomas said.

It remains, after all, California. In Malibu, where Schwarzenegger toured the remains of a Presbyterian church leveled on Sunday, Mayor Pro-Tempore Pam Conley Ulich urged perspective. "It's a horrible day, but it's also a beautiful day because you get to spend time with your family," she told a news conference. "Live in the moment."

Geis reported from Del Mar and San Diego, Vick from Los Angeles.