The Paradise Mountain fire and smaller fires turned parts of Valley Center into a living hell on Sunday and Monday.
• Schools should remain closed through Friday.
• Residents will not be allowed back into burned areas until Thursday or Friday.
• No complete list of houses burned is available yet, although there is a partial list (see end of article).
• Evacuated areas remain Paradise Mountain, Banbury, Woods Valley and N. Lake Wohlford roads.
Fires started early Sunday and swept through neighborhoods almost before people could be warned to move out.
As clouds of smoke and flame boiled through neighborhoods, there were untold stories of tragedy and heroism.
Two people in Valley Center were listed as fatalities, and 65 homes burned in what is likely the worst fire in Valley Center’s history. There were also four civilian injuries and two firefighter injuries.
According to VC Fire Chief Kevin O’Leary, the fire began just behind Harrah’s Rincon Casino at San Luis Rey River around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday.
From there the fire went straight up the hill and hit the Yellow Brick Road area.
Then, said O’Leary, the inferno raced towards Cole Grade Road, moved south and crossed Valley Center Road at MacTan. Then it ran up North Lake Wohlford Road, spreading to Woods Valley and the Paradise Mountain area.
Later on Sunday the fire entered the Ridge Ranch development, burning several homes, jumped Valley Center Road and began spreading near Lake Dixon.
On Monday the Paradise Mountain area was again threatened as the blaze flared up again and burned several more homes.
As of Tuesday 37,000 acres had burned, with 65 residences destroyed, 120 outbuildings and 75 vehicles destroyed.
By Tuesday the Santa Ana winds had died, allowing reinforcements pouring in from Northern California to get a handle on the western boundary of the fire and stopping the fire from spreading further west, into Escondido.
However, with marine breezes blowing in from offshore, the four miles of uncontained fire began moving east, threatening the La Jolla Indian reservation and Palomar Mountain.
According to CDF Battalion Chief Jeff Terpstra, “There is a four mile fire front that is uncontained and is progressing eastward.”
According to Terpstra, the CDF has about one third of the fire crews that it would like to have to battle this blaze. However, San Diego’s fires are second in priority statewide to the Cedar Fire burning in San Bernardino County.
“This incident is going to be here for a considerable period,” he said.
To further add to the local misery, a low lying pall of smoke lay over Valley Center on Monday and especially Tuesday. This broke up slowly as the marine layer advanced.
At the same time, VC was hit by several power outages. This created some problems at the CDF command post at the Lilac fire station.
Worst Ever
Bill Clayton, division chief with California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection, and the original incident commander for the VC fire, commented that it was the worst fire he has seen in his 45 years fighting fires.
VC Fire Chief Kevin O’Leary, interviewed by The Roadrunner Monday night, wearily agreed: “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen.”
The VC blazes were all part of a much larger conflagration that made most of San Diego County look like a war zone, with parts of Scripps Ranch, Poway, Ramona and Julian in flames.
The cause of the local fires were under investigation but a source told The Roadrunner that it was likely that at least one fire, which started near Harrah’s Rincon Casino, had been set deliberately.
At one time on Sunday only one way led out of Valley Center, on Lilac. Both Cole Grade and Valley Center roads were closed to traffic.
Two fatalities
Two young women and a young man were trapped as they tried to escape from their home on Station Road, off Lake Wohlford Road in the early hours of Sunday.
Ashleigh and Alison Roach and their brother Jared tried to escape in a car, but were apparently blinded by the smoke. They ran into a tree and were trapped by the flames. Ashleigh, a junior at Valley Center High School, died at the scene. Her sister, Alison, who was a graduate of the school, was sent to the hospital with burns over much of her body. Jared suffered minor injuries.
Another death occurred when a woman named Nancy Morphew, 51, who lived with her husband, Steve at 29547 Yellow Brick Road, died as she was trying to save her horse, which she was pulling in a trailer. She also became confused by the smoke and ran her truck and trailer into a gully. Ironically, if she had stayed at her house she would have been OK. Nothing burned there.
Early morning escapes
Barry Stepan, a resident of Mac Tan described his experience:
Stepan, who sleeps with the window open woke up about 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, smelling smoke.
“I went outside and there was so much smoke that you couldn’t see or breathe. I woke Christi, [his girlfriend] and said “Get up, we’ve got to get out of here, now. She got up and I didn’t even have shoes on. That was how fast we had to move.”
They threw dogs into the car and drove to his sister’s.
They stayed there half an hour, gathering their thoughts, and decided to to go back to save their horse.
The entrance to their house and the trees on the property were burning. They drove through the fire, retrieved the horse and walked him through the entrance. “It’s a really calm horse,” Stepan observed.
They made it about two blocks when a horse trailer pulled up and took the horse down to a shelter in Escondido (a shelter that has since that time been evacuated.)
Christi made it about two blocks and a horse trailer pulled up. They took the horse down to Escondido. She got out with her horse. He stayed behind and figured he would do what he could with hoses.
“To my amazement,” reported Stepan, “two guys were on the property with hoses. Their names were Bill and Mike. I called my friend Paul Johnson, who lives in Paradise Mountain and he came through like a champion. Without those three guys I’m sure my buildings would have all burned down down. My tack house had started to burn, but between the four of us we battled that sun of a gun.”
Brandon Cesmat, whose family lives behind the Roach family, also on Station Road, almost suffered the same fate as the young people, but he took a different route.
“It’s a miracle,” he said. “Every house around us is down. The only reason is that I brushed around there about a month ago. The wind drove the fire right over it. When the flames were leaping they went right over the brushed area.”
When Cesmat was driving to escape the blaze, he didn’t use his driveway. “Had I done so I probably would have rear-ended the Roaches. I couldn’t see ten feet ahead of me,” he said.
Fortunately, his other neighbors had left their gate open.
Even so, when Cesmat got back to his place after the fire had passed, his deck was on fire and he had lost an outbuilding.
“I look out and every house that was to the east of me is a slab. I can see four dead horses also,” he said.
Friends and Heroes
Local heroes and a few good friends are credited by Roadrunner Sports Editor Cliff Bernard with saving his home at the north end of Vesper Road.
Bernard was asleep at 3 a.m. when friends phoned from near the middle school and said that fire was burning behind his home.
Over the next two hours, Bernard watched the fire crawl up the canyon.
“We thought we were out of danger until sunrise came,” said Bernard. “The wind picked up and then all hell broke loose.”
The fire jumped Fruitvale and snaked along Sunset towards his home.
Bernard got the kids to a friends and packed a few belongings when Marty Kleiman arrived with some friends.
They cleared what they could and watered everything down surrounding the property.
As the fire inched towards the property Bernard couldn’t believe what he saw next.
A fire truck pulled into his driveway and took up a position between the fire and the house. Following the fire truck was a CDF truck with a crew of 15 that quickly began a firebreak with a back-burn.
With fireman dousing the residence with water and fire retardant, the fire and back burn met on all three sides of the house.
The fire passed by without any structural damage.
“Palomar Fire #97, Hank, Cliff & Doug, Marty and his friends, and the La Cemme CDF crew are all heroes in my book. If not for them we would have lost everything,” said Bernard.
Evacuation Center
By early morning Sunday VC Middle School had been set up as a center for evacuated families.
Chris Manning, a VC resident, was in charge of the evacuation center.
As the Paradise Mountain fire approached the middle school, the Red Cross moved its center to VC High School, where decorations from the Homecoming Dance of the night before were still up.
Here people rested, eat or refreshed themselves.
By noon more than 300 people had registered at the evacuation center. Manning told The Roadrunner that more than 300 had registered.
She added that 25 cases of water were provided by Valley View Casino and 200 lunches were sent by Casino Pauma.
About noon Sunday, the fire approaching from the east persuaded the Red Cross to move the center once again, this time to St. Peter’s Church in Fallbrook.
On Tuesday the evacuation center was moved back to VC High School.
* * *
Fire singed Bates Nut Farm, burning a few bales of hay and some wagons, but mainly spared the operation.
The Oaks Indian Hill Ranch, a horse-breeding farm, was also spared, although the hills overlooking it were scorched.
Local heroes
Eyewitness reported that a local teenage, Tyler Laurishcha, and his father, went around Sunday morning warning neighbors. They also reportedly personally saved six houses from burning, keeping the fires from starting on roofs with fire hoses.
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As soon as Owen Trogdon, Joe Carstonson, and several other Valleyites secured their own homes on Sunday they helped put out hot spots along Woods Valley Road. Using a water truck that Trogdon secured from his work site they were stopped the fire from jumping the road at a couple of locations.
Casinos mainly unharmed
A house below Valley View Casino burned Sunday, causing heat damage to the casino’s walls facing in that direction. This caused some damage to several slot machines that were on the other side of the wall.
Harrah’s Rincon Casino, despite brush burning on several fronts nearby was undamaged. According to a release from the casino’s management, “Harrah’s Rincon Casino & Resort will remain closed on a day to day basis, pending ongoing evaluation of the fire situation in the Valley Center area. Guests and employees may call 1-800-HARRAHS for further information and status updates.”
* * *
A deputy who was wearing a breathing mask at the intersection of Paradise Mountain & North Lake Wohlford Roads on Sunday afternoon, described how deputies had to make a quick evacuation of the substation about 8 a.m. Sunday morning
“The fire came out of the hills and we had to move all the people. That was going to be the command post but the fire came and kind of moved us.”
Damage Assessment
Because fire officials have been concentrating on keeping the fire from burning other houses, damage assessment has had to take a back seat.
Officials were out on Tuesday and the rest of the week to identify the houses that had burned. But the list below is only a partial list. A more complete list will probably be available later. We will publish it on the website.
Confirmed burned houses:
28672 Sunset Rd.;
31478, 31341, 31339, and 31515 Valley Center Rd.;
27910, 27911, 28037, 28141, 28227, 28229, 28231 N. Lake Wohlford;31375, 31393, 31367 Station Rd.; 28151, 28147 Ahern Ranch Rd.;
29175, 29242, , 29241, 29403, 29439, 29493, 29547, 29550,30027A, 30029, 30072, Yellow Brick Rd.;15524, 15595, 15630 Rim of the Valley;31655 Pauma Heights;15969 Lazy H Dr.;16092 Angela Ct.;16062, 16048 Emerald;16901 Dorothy Ln.;16094 Wizard Ln.;
The County, state and federal governments all declared emergencies for the San Diego area this week.
Stay Indoors
San Diego County Health Officer Dr. Nancy Bowen recommends that residents minimize outside activities. “People in the path of the smoke and ash need to stay indoors unless asked to evacuate,” said Dr. Bowen. “Keep windows and doors closed, and if you have air conditioning with filtration, turn it on.”
CDF stretched thin
As of this writing CDF had 209 engines, 173 crews and 2,778 personnel assigned to the various fires in California.
Locally 133 strike teams, with five engines each, were assigned to the fire.
FEMA acts
Within two hours of being contacted by the state, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's FEMA authorized firefighting funds to help California fight the Cedar and Paradise fires burning in San Diego County.
Michael D. Brown, under secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency
Preparedness and Response, approved the federal fire management assistance for the Paradise fire, which posed an immediate threat to 250 more homes and 150 businesses; more than 200 people were evacuated from the area. Earlier requests for FEMA help had been granted earlier in the week for fires in San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Ventura and Riverside county fires.
Federal fire management assistance is provided through the President’s Disaster Relief Fund and made available by FEMA to assist in fighting fires that threaten to cause a major disaster. The assistance pays 75% of a state’s eligible firefighting and emergency response costs under an approved grant for managing, mitigating and controlling designated fires.
Residents and business owners impacted by the fires can begin applying for assistance by calling 1-800-621-FEMA.
Schools Closed
Due to air quality and road closures, VC-Pauma Unified School District classes were due to be closed until the end of the week, and maybe beyond that if conditions warranted, Supt. Karen Jobe told The Roadrunner.
Red Cross Donations
The American Red Cross has designated the San Diego region a National Disaster Relief Operation. The San Diego Chapter of the American Red Cross has established a separate account to aid the victims of the San Diego County “October Fires.” If you wish to help the victims of these fires, direct all contributions to: The American Red Cross, 3650 Fifth Ave., San Diego, CA 92103.
Because Bloodmobiles have been taken out of service for the duration of the fires, the Red Cross asks that people make up the difference by donating blood at its two main centers at 7675 Mesa College Drive and the Escondido Donor Center at 460 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Road widening will begin on the Valley Center grade Monday, Nov. 10, according to Brendan McNabb, project manager, county Dept. of Public Works.
This first phase of the long-awaited road widening will take the road from just above Escondido to a mile short of Banbury. That is just about two miles. The first half mile of the job is within the limits of the City of Escondido.
Construction will take about 20 months, with about one year overlapping Phase II & III of the road work, which will take the widening to the intersection of VC Road & Cole Grade.
Phase II construction (from below Banbury to Woods Valley) and Phase III (from Woods Valley to Cole Grade Road) are slated to start by next fall. DPW hopes to combine the two as a single phase that would take about two years to complete.
The County is in the process of purchasing parcels for the right of way of Phase II & III. That should be completed by next spring.
Phase I will take the road from its existing three lanes to four lanes with an 18 foot wide stripped center median, complete with two five foot wide bike lanes and ten foot parkways on either side.
The road divider that VC residents have come to regard fondly as “the luge” will be replaced by the unlandscaped median. On either side of that will be bumping “rumble strips” to remind drivers when they stray too near the median.
A landscaped median for Phases III is still a possibility, said McNabb, if the contractor bids low enough so that money is available.
The contract for Phase I was awarded to the Riverside firm of Yeager Skanska Inc., for $11.4 million.
Hours of Construction
In order for the contract to be completed as fast as possible the County is allowing construction to occur if necessary 24 hours a day. Two lanes of traffic will be kept open almost all of the time.
There are two instances where one lane might be closed temporarily, said McNabb, if there are storm drain crossings or if a truck needs to cross the road while earthwork is occurring.
“We are not anticipating long lines of traffic,” said McNabb. Traffic may be stopped every ten minutes for up to 60 seconds, he said.
DPW will also solicit the help of the California Highway Patrol during certain critical times.
Blasting is not anticipated, said McNabb. “We’re hoping that most of the rock will be rippable.” He added that blasting is prohibited at night.
Community Outreach
McNabb will hold a community outreach meeting at the Nov. 10 Valley Center Planning Group meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. at VC Community Hall.
“We’ll introduce the team and let people know about the hotline and community outreach. The contractor will also be there,” he said.
Some funds for the widening were contributed by area tribes. This includes $2.4 million from the Rincon tribe, $129,000 from the Pauma tribe and $243,000 from the Pala tribe.
Wildland Crossings
The County is also required to construct three wildlife crossings, essentially underground culverts, 15 ft by 15 ft. These will be under the road and will be fenced to as much as possible, direct the animals.
Brochures to be mailed
The County plans to mail about 10,000 informational brochures on the road widening to VC residents.
It will also send out an email newsletter on the progress of the construction every two weeks.
Anyone who wants to receive the newsletter can call the project hotline (listed below).
Call Destree Lazo with questions about the project, including working hours, for updates and with concerns.
The project hotline number is 619-232-2640.
A child from Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District was one of three students in three school districts who fell ill from E. coli.
This illness has stricken 52 throughout Southern California.
According to Asst. Supt. Sarah Clayton, the county Health Dept. won’t release the name of the child who contracted the disease.
“We received a phone call from the health department last week stating that a student in our district was showing symptoms of e. coli and they asked for our production records showing what we served at lunch during that week,” Mrs. Clayton told The Roadrunner.
The district serves over 3,000 lunches at day.
The health department wouldn’t give the district the name of the child, so the school can’t check its records to see if that particular child ate lunch during the day in question.
On that particular day, said Mrs. Clayton, the district did not serve salad. Other cases of e. coli in the county have derived from the eating of salad, specifically lettuce.
That’s where several cases of e. coli that infected over 20 customers of Pat & Oscar’s restaurants stemmed from.
However, the district has decided to stop by its lettuce from Gold Coast Productions, which is a back-up supplier of food to the district, and also the supplier of lettuce to Pat & Oscars and many other school districts.
“As soon as we heard about the outbreak on the news we pulled everything in the cafeteria,” said Mrs. Clayton.
“We do have one case and one case only that was confirmed by county health,” she stated. “It occurred in the early part of October. The incubation period is two to eight days and we haven’t put out that product since Oct. 6, so there shouldn’t be any concern about future outbreaks.”
She added, “We’re always very careful in our cafeterias. Whenever there’s any indication of tainted food ever mentioned we always just pull it as a precaution.
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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