This week Valley Center began to return to normal.
Alongside the CalFire staging area on Lilac and the helicopter bucket landing area on Blackington Airport people were returning to their lives.
Signs thanking the firefighters were cheek by jowl with drivers impatient with the fact that they were delayed by the fire traffic on Lilac.
The County contractor resumed work on the road-widening of VC Road.
School was set to reopen on Wednesday, after more than a week out.
Teacher Parent Club and school officials, who had earlier announced that the Halloween Carnival would be cancelled, were beginning to rethink that—although as of this writing we had not heard the final decision.
At this writing the Poomacha Fire (see separate article, this page) had burned 49,540 acres and was 70% contained. Full containment was expected by Wednesday with full control on Nov. 5.
Nearly 2,800 firefighters were assigned to make that prediction a reality.
Word from fire officials was that most of them would be staying on over the weekend, rather than dispersing to the rest of the state because mild Santa Ana winds are forecast, and they want to be ready should they have to renew the battle.
According to SDG&E 97% of the electricity will be back on line by this weekend—but they don’t say which 97% (see separate story).
Fires continue to blaze in the Aqua Tibia wilderness area of Palomar Mountain, overlooking Pala and Casino Pauma.
According to Palomar Fire Chief George Lucia, “The fire remains heavy and dangerous. Repopulation of the Palomar Mountain residential neighborhoods is a top priority and not contingent on electricity.”
“It is only when the roadways are safe and repairs and any fire danger has passed (new winds could start a hot spot into a unburned area),” he said.
They are making provision for the return of mountain residents such as having large 30 yard containers for spoiled foods at three neighborhood locations. These spots will include plastic bags, gloves and disinfectant.”
The work on Hwy 76 may be completed by Wednesday and Cal Trans understands the need to open that route.
Anyone who must return due to business (livestock-operations) may get a pass from the San Diego Sheriff’s Office.
A sign that the fire was nearing the control phase was that the helicopters that have been based for a week at Blackington airport will be leaving in a couple of days.
The ten or so airpark owners were delighted when asked if CalFire could park about eight of its big heavy lift choppers at the airfield.
It has been a comforting and awesome sight for many to see the huge Columbia BV-107 helicopter using the 1000-gallon Griffith Big Dipper Helibucket, the Sikorsky S58 piston powered mid size helicopters and the Sikorsky S61 / H3 Sea King helicopters going over to hit the Palomar blaze.
One of the owners, Sean Heath, told The Roadrunner that the owners have been putting on pizza and hamburger dinners for the pilots, who set up a little tent village in the river bed.
They will be sorry to see them go.
For a list of damaged properties, visit the County Dept. of Planning & Land Use site: www.sdcdplu.org.
Currently this site lists the following homes that have been destroyed:
Lake Wohlford Rd: 28235
Old Wagon Rd: 23352, 23450, 23491, 23649, 23650, 23845, 23849, 23939
Old Yucca Trail: 16777
Valley Center Rd: 34812
We expect this list to grow in the coming days.
Note: The County has no list of homes that have been destroyed on the reservations, where the majority of homes were damaged by the Poomacha Fire.
It was an afterthought, really.
“Maybe we ought to put all the fire information on our editor’s blog so that we can keep updating it during the fire.”
That casual thought turned out to have had far more serious consequences then we ever thought at the time.
For during the next few days The Roadrunner’s blog “Curmudgeon’s View” turned out to have thousands of loyal readers—some of them on the other side of the world, New Zealand for example!
The usage of that blog jumped from an average of 1,100 hits per week to over 14,000 the week of the fire. So many hits that it strained the resources of our Web site provider.
That blog is available at:www.valleycenter.com. We tell you that not so much to toot our own horn, but so you will know that next time a crisis hits: Look on that Web site!
It was a fortunate juxtapositioning of technologies that wouldn’t have been possible for us as recently as the last big fire—The Paradise fire of 2003.
It meant that despite the fact that we had to evacuate the office early in the morning of Oct. 23, we were able to maintain a lifeline for many of our residents who were unable to find any mention of their community on the larger Web sites in the county, on TV or on the radio.
Our editor, David Ross, seated at the publisher’s dining room table in Oceanside, was able to keep in touch with various agencies in town, including almost hourly conversations with the Valley Center Fire Protection District’s office.
Since they were in the midst of the town, they were often able to scotch some of the ridiculous rumors that were floating around, and which were seriously panicking a lot of residents who were often a hundred miles or more away.
He was able to update the blog as soon as he had the facts. We often updated the blog late at night.
We supplemented that information with eye-witness accounts from our roving reporters, Ray Flores and Dan Kidder. Flores became our eyes and ears as soon as he got his family evacuated. Kidder chose not to leave. So did other credible sources.
We decided that we would not contribute to the general chaos by reporting every panicky eye-witness account, which often contained inaccurate and often alarming information.
We preferred to be a constant source for up-to-date but calm information.
Here are some of the many comments we received:
“I just want to say thanks for keeping your blog up to date. I live in Seattle and haven't been able to get a hold of my grandfather who lives on Paradise Mountain. Your site is the best information I'm getting—so thank you!”
“Thank you for this site. It is so hard to find any info on Valley Center. We just moved from Tierrasanta to Woods Valley in Valley Center 3 weeks ago.”
“Thank you for the postings. We live in Florida, but our daughter and her family have a home in Valley Center, so we appreciate being able to keep up on what is happening.”
“Thank you so much for the blog! If you think the local news is bad try relying on the 24-hour nationwide stations to tell you anything. I live in Chicago with my parents in VC, and have found this blog to be the only news that doesn't crash, lock up or dramatize and blow hot air. Kudos from the Midwest!”
“David keep up the good info.”
“Thanks again for such an accurate post of current conditions. Again, our family is very relieved.”
“Your blog has been our best link to information. We are very grateful for your efforts!”
“You have no idea how this blog has given my family peace of mind. My sister and brother in-law evacuated with their children, yet the idea of a possible loss of their home keeps us on pins and needles as we await news from Valley Center.A family friend of ours has lost their home in Jamul, and we vigorously pray that your outcome is not the same. Our prayers are with you all! God Bless!”
“I thank God for small towns and local newspapers. Your detail has been so so helpful to us looking for any insight to the reality out there. We will sleep a bit better tonight and return to our community with a renewed spirit. Thank you roadrunner and thank you CDF—Valley Center (may you never have to pay for a meal in town again)!”
“Thanks for providing a wonderful service- this is very helpful to us locals.”
“Thank you, sincerely, for the only timely information we can find. When checking the "suggested sites" you can't even tell Valley Center is still evacuated. We appreciate your efforts to keep us up to date. THANK YOU.”
“This has been my main source of VC info and I am so grateful. We live on Cool Valley/Callejo Feliz, and have no idea whether or not our place was damaged. I have begged for info, but to no avail. Does ANYONE have any idea when we can come back? It seems almost everyone has been allowed to return but VC residents. If it's dangerous, okay, but can SOMEONE say SOMETHING to those of us who need to know if they have no home? Sorry to carry on so...just want to come home :) and feel terribly uniformed by the mainstay media.”
Sunday afternoon those who got the word were able to hear the latest fire information from the mouths of the incident commanders who have been in charge of the Poomacha fire from the start.
It was an all-star gathering of emergency honchos at the quad at Valley Center High School.
As helicopters dangling water buckets flew by overhead from their base at Blackington airport and continued east to drop water on the fire, the various officers of the combined incident command structure told a little about how they had first reacted to the fire and then what residents might expect now.
The Poomacha fire was the last of the major fires to start. It is estimated to have started at 3:09 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23 in the La Jolla Indian reservation, probably from a burning building.
No one knows yet exactly how the fire started.
What is known is that it spread very rapidly from its inception. The first incident commander was Wes Ruise, fire chief at the La Jolla Reservation. By the time the chief arrived the fire had spread to five acres. That's when he gave it the name: Poomacha, which means “valley” in the tribe's language.
“I wish now that I had given it an easier name,” joked Ruise Sunday.
Within a few minutes 20 acres were burning and it had spread west to the Cuca Ranch and into the Bell property. At first the firefighters tried to save structures, using the method of letting the fire go past the house, and then going back to put out the burning embers.
But soon they realized that they were outclassed. “When you have more structures burning than you have people—you can do the math,” said Ruise.
The fire moved FAST!
By 8:30 a.m. it had crossed South Grade and into the State Park area of Palomar Mountain near Boucher point. It burned 23,000 acres in its first five hours. It had also crested the ridge at Yellow Brick Road.
At this point Div. Chief Mike Bratton took over command of the incident, bringing in Cal Fire’s resources.
Because it was the last major fire to start in San Diego County, there were fewer resources to throw at it. Kevin O’Leary, CalFire Battalion Chief and VC Fire Chief, took independent action and brought in as many engines as he could.
By this time most of Valley Center had been given the Reverse 911 call and were on the move out of the area, or to the high school evacuation center.
They realized that the fire was too big and moving too fast to react locally. Fortunately CalFire, which had three incident command teams at work in San Diego County, had put another one, Team 4, in reserve in Riverside County.
“It's actually quite amazing that we had that one available,” said Bratton.
Because Valley Center residents for the most part had been evacuated by the reverse 911 calls CalFire was able to respond to the actual fire more efficiently—rather than worrying about having to rescue people caught in the blaze.
At this point the fire was large enough to qualify for a Major Fire Incident Command, run by the state. Incident Commander Dave Ault explained: “When we got here the local resource drain was almost insurmountable.”
Ault arrived to take command at 8 p.m. Wednesday. They slowly built up the number of firefighters. Currently there are about 2,600 firefighters battling the blaze.
Residents are still seeing a lot of smoke coming off the mountain. But a lot of that is brush that is within the lines of containment drawn around the blaze. In other words, it's burning in areas that have already been overrun.
That fire is in steep and often impossible terrain for hand crews to reach. Fortunately there are about 23 aircraft taking part in the battle. That includes ten fixed wing aircraft and 13 helicopters.
Authorities predict that they will have drawn a line completely around the Poomacha fire this week.
“Up here on the mountain is our main concern,” Ault commented. “We now have a small sector with an active fire line.”
Currently damage assessment teams are going through the burned regions to identify all of the houses that have burned. It is estimated that the fire has destroyed 136 homes.
At Sunday's meeting Chief O'Leary complimented high school Principal Ron McCowan for his take-charge attitude in organizing the evacuation center at the high school when the Red Cross was unavailable.
At one point 3,000 people were at the center. “Our principal took command, aided by a very few staff members and our local CERT team,” said O'Leary. McCowan got a round of applause.
Once the fire is past a new danger looms. “Now the runs are coming,” said O’Leary. Any places denuded of brush will be prime candidates for mudslides.
Michael Ainza, assistant director of the County Dept. of Planning & Land Use, said that the County stands ready to help cut the red tape for those who need to rebuild.
Most of those people are on the reservation, and so they won't need County assistance. However, anyone whose house burned down in unincorporated land will need to go through the process.
Residents should be aware that if they are rebuilding a home that was built in some earlier decade that the rebuilding will be subject to new building codes. This caused a great deal of problems for residents after the 2003 blaze. However, the County will be showing its kinder and gentler side by not charging fees to rebuild for the first year. After that you’re on your own.
Before the fire Fran DeWilde and husband John went to Casino Pauma to celebrate her 80th birthday and the renewing of her Realtor’s license. They took along drawing entry tickets out of The Roadrunner and entered the drawing. She won $500!
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
Copyright © 2007, Palomar Community Newspapers, dba Valley Roadrunner. All rights reserved. This content may not be archived, retransmitted, saved in a database, or used for any commercial purpose without the express written permission of the Valley Roadrunner.