Former Emporian reports from Fire Front
Staff and wire reports
Originally published 01:53 p.m., October 23, 2007
Updated 01:53 p.m., October 23, 2007
SAN DIEGO — The wind-fueled fires that have burned more than 700 homes and chased away 265,000 residents might be only the start of the destruction in Southern California, where today’s forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive wind gusts.
Former Emporian Kate Knecht Johnson and her husband, Brian, had closeted themselves at home Monday afternoon to wait out the fire with their three children, Sam, 7, Max, 5, and Sadie, 2.
Knecht, a daughter of Steve and Ann Knecht of Emporia, and her family live in Encinitas, which lies between San Clemente to the north and San Diego to the south.
Their home was 10 miles from the fire on Monday, but Kate Johnson said the visibility outside their house was about one block.
“There’s just white smoke everywhere,” she said. “We’re just sitting around with the doors closed. They haven’t evacuated our area yet and the freeways are just jam-packed. We’re just going to stay put until they tell us to evacuate.”
The family has its bags packed and is ready to leave, if necessary.
She said that lines at gas stations are about 30 vehicles long, and people whose homes have air conditioning have been told to turn it on to filter air.
“We’ve got air purifiers going in all the rooms,” she said. “... We don’t have air conditioning.”
Johnson said that she was not frightened yet by the fire, but was paying attention to its progress. Her husband grew up in California and has tried to reassure her.
“He just keeps saying that if the fire ever got this far from the coast, it would be the worst fire in history,” she said.
“I think it’s all up and down California, I think, north of Malibu and all the way down. There’s not really any way to go unless you’ve got a big boat and go out to sea.”
The fires that started Sunday were whipped by ferocious winds, generating walls of flame that bore down on housing developments in a wide swath.
Homes burned from the beaches of Malibu to the mountain retreats east of Los Angeles and south through Orange and San Diego counties to Mexico.
The blazes spread so quickly that even hotels serving as temporary shelters for evacuees had to be evacuated.
Wanda Tomkinson, 79, fled the Doubletree hotel in Del Mar with her husband and their Boston terrier after employees called each room to tell customers they had to leave. The couple, carrying medication, clothes, tax records and a dog bowl, said they were relying on a family friend to take them in.
If not, Tomkinson added, “the Lord’ll take care of us.”
The wildfires claimed one life — Thomas Varshock, 52, of Tecate, southeast of San Diego — and injured 42, among them 16 firefighters.
The fires were exploding and shooting embers in all directions, preventing crews from forming traditional fire lines and severely limiting aerial bombardment, according to Capt. Don Camp, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Thousands of residents sought shelter at fairgrounds, schools and community centers. The largest gathering was at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, where evacuees anxiously watched the stadium’s television sets, hoping for a glimpse of their neighborhood on the local news.
At least 250,000 residents in San Diego County alone were ordered to evacuate. Public schools were closed, as were campuses at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University.
East of Los Angeles, a two-front fire destroyed at least 160 homes in the Lake Arrowhead area, the same mountain resort community where hundreds of homes were lost four years earlier.
As the fires spread, most out of control, smaller blazes were merging into larger, more fearsome ones. Evacuations were being announced in one community after another as firefighters found themselves overwhelmed by gale-force Santa Ana winds, sometimes gusting to 70 mph.