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Tourists Keith Topping and his wife Sheela, from Ojai, arrived on the island Thursday and have no plans to leave early because of the fire. They're scheduled to leave Saturday.
"I’d see hot spots," Topping said. "They would quickly get to them with helicopters. We didn’t get afraid for some reason. I didn't have sense enough. I guess we saw it as an adventure."
Catalina Island Vacation Rentals had 46 arrivals scheduled for today but they were all canceled. In the offices in downtown Avalon, the phones were ringing off the hook as staffers fielded calls from landlords wanting to make sure their properties were OK.
Denny Honsey, general manager of Catalina Island Vacation Rentals, said: "We still had some people who said, 'We still want to come,' but I had to tell them, 'You can't come here.'"
Company president Kevin Strege sent his wife and kids to the mainland to escape the blaze.
"I’ve seen fires before but never getting close to town."
-Seema Mehta in Avalon
A tour of 41 elementary students from Phoenix were swimming off Catalina Thursday when they were told they needed to evacuate. They left in flip flops, bathing suits and whatever they had brought to cover their suits.
Lyn Bailey, the school's assistant superintendent, said the students and six teachers from Arroyo Elementary School were taking an end-of-the-year trip to the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina. The school has been sending classes there for the last six years. Until they were evacuated, the students were looking for marine species in their natural habitat, as well as swimming and snorkeling. For some students, it was their first trip out of the state.
They were first evacuated to Fox Landing, where the group thought it was going to stay for the night. But at 2 a.m. Catalina fire officials told them they needed to leave the island.
The teachers gathered up the children and led them to the ferry. They arrived Cabrillo High School in Long Beach shortly before 4 a.m. and were quickly ushered to cots, where they could sleep. By morning, Long Beach residents brought donated clothes to the students so they wouldn't have to wear their swimsuits on the ride home.
The students left by bus this morning and are expected in Phoenix at 4 p.m.
School officials expressed thanks to officials for taking care of the students. "We always knew California was a good neighbor," Bailey said.
-Ashley Powers
Avalon Mayor Bob Kennedy emerged from a meeting with officials who assessed the damage and said the evacuation had ended.
"We expect sometime this afternoon to lift the evacuation notices and allow residents who left the island to return to their homes. However, we’re discouraging visitors to come to the island. We’re not saying they can’t, but there will be limited restaurant access and many hotel rooms will be occupied by firefighters fighting the fire in the interior of the island. Cross-channel traffic is also expected to resume this afternoon."
-Louis Sahagun in Avalon
Earl Schrader, 55, who owns a real estate firm on Catalina, spent Thursday night at his office with his seven cats after being evacuated from his home. This morning, he was cleaning the windows of ash and preparing to catch up on paperwork. Residents aren't going to leave, he said. "Even if we're told to leave, we're not going to," Schrader said.
Donna Harris and Dave Smith have lived in Catalina since January after moving from Arizona. Smith, who used to work at the fire lookout in Glacier National Park in Montana, was fascinated by the fire. "This is quite a show," he said. "I've never seen anything quite like this."
People were pulling together, the couple said. For example, one neighbor, a butcher, was driving around in his golf cart every few hours, giving updates.
"Everybody knows everybody, everybody knows everybody's kids, everybody's had to pull together," Smith said.
-Seema Mehta in Avalon
After spending all night and most of yesterday on the fire lines, Avalon Mayor Bob Kennedy, a volunteer firefighter, returned to town this morning for a critical 10:15 briefing that will determine one of the most pressing questions of the morning: whether to resume cross-channel tourist traffic as early as today.
Kennedy began his work on the fire lines Thursday at the "point of origin of this fire, KBRT Radio station tower about seven miles west of Avalon."
There, he said, "I was manning Engine No. 2, putting water on hot stuff."
"Initially," he said, "I thought we were going to lose our community. But proper training and deployment limited our losses to one residential unit and eight or nine warehouse-type structures." The warehouses were located at a wildlands interface area known as Falls Canyon.
The fire, he said, was about 30% contained as of 9:30 a.m.
He said he was looking forward to a series of important meetings and then "a cold beer and a nice dinner and bed."
Kennedy, looking exhausted and seriously sunburned, said the Avalon Fire Department was back to normal operations this morning and "our focus now is on an interior attack and mopping up a few hot spots at the edges of town."
Looking back, he said, "We stopped the fire at Falls Canyon with a lot of hard work and ballsy moves."
-Louis Sahagun in Avalon
Katie Wrighton and Kurt Edwards were keeping their fingers crossed that their wedding in Catalina could still go off as planned Saturday on a grassy patch in Descanso Beach. But just in case, they'd loaded the flowers, decorations and wedding dress into Katie's parents' boat, in case they have to move to Newport Beach.
The groom's family arrived at their hotel Thursday but had to be evacuated hours later. They moved into the bride's family's condo and had a party on the balcony Thursday night while watching the fire burn.
Half of the 75 guests are on the island already, and half are still on the mainland with their attendance somewhat in doubt.
"It's pretty scary and we have a wedding to think of," said the bride's mother, Char Wrighton, who lives in Yosemite much of the year. "We're going to go for it."
She and husband Bill said the locals don't want to leave. "When it's your home, you're the last to leave," she said.
Bride Katie Wrighton, 19, didn't sleep at all Thursday night, watching the fire through the sliding glass. But groom Kurt Edwards slept like a log. After working for two years as a hot shot with the U.S. Forest Service, he's used to fires.
-Seema Mehta in Avalon
Long Beach exterminator Steven Griffith, 42, was waiting at Catalina Express pier in downtown Long Beach hoping to help out evacuees. A former resident of Catalina, he said he took the day off to offer temporary lodging to evacuees. "I’ve got a roof over my head, I'm grateful for that. I’m thinking two or three people, if they need help, could spend the night."
One of the few people heading toward Catalina was Tommy Duong, 36, who was trying to get to his job at Mr. Ming’s, a Chinese restaurant, which he said was one of the few businesses open on the island. "A lot of businesses are closing down, except for us," he said his colleagues had told him. "The restaurant is located near a popular hotel and many people need to eat."
Duong lives part-time near Alhambra in the San Gabriel Valley. He and other workers sometimes stay at a house in Avalon with their boss, which his colleagues have told him is "full of smoke." "It’s very terrible, it’s very bad, a lot of businesses are closing down, except us. The restaurant is located near a popular hotel, and many people need to eat," he said.
"It’s actually a very nice place – Avalon – it’s all ashes," Duong said.
-Susannah Rosenblatt
As of 9 a.m., about 90 people were still at the Red Cross overnight shelter at Cabrillo High School in Long Beach. Some 138 people had stayed overnight, but middle school students from Phoenix who had been evacuated from their science camp left for home by charter bus early this morning.
The remaining evacuees were given breakfast, which included oatmeal, cereal and cereal bars. At 8:45 a.m., to the delight of many, towels arrived so evacuees could take showers.
Nurses and paramedics from the Long Beach Fire Department were on hand throughout the morning in case evacuees had health problems, which were mostly the result of pre-existing conditions rather than smoke.
Red Cross workers were told that if the fire continues at its current clip, they should expect more evacuees this afternoon. The high school gym is reserved throughout the weekend just in case. Gym classes are canceled.
-Ashley Powers
The only home lost in the fire belonged to Brad Wilson and his family. The 1933 beach bungalow where they lived for 2 1/2 years was located in an area called Quail Canyon. It was owned by the Santa Catalina Island Company, one of the primary tour operators on the island.
Wilson is the chief marketing officer for the company. He and his wife and two children, their dog and two geckos were evacuated Thursday afternoon; they spent the night at a friend's house.
"We grabbed what we thought was important," Wilson said. "In hindsight, we would have taken a lot more. It's so surreal, it's really tough to expect that to happen. This is such an idyllic community."
He said they grabbed photos, passports, tax information and "not near enough clothes."
"I'm sure this will work out. This is a close-knit community."
-Amanda Covarrubias
Josh Olsen, 23, a fourth-generation Avalon resident with bleached, spiked hair, had his work cut out for him this morning lugging back home "the important stuff I saved last night: two skateboards and three guitars including a vintage '70s Rickenbacker, once owned by Warren Zevon," a rock musician and songwriter who was known for his dark and sometimes humorous songs.
Still missing was his albino corn snake "which I think is loose in the house somewhere." Looking back, he shook his head and said, "It was kind of a trip, man. Awesome."
-Louis Sahagun in Avalon
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