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Malibu:
Monday afternoon, along Las Flores Canyon, an area high in the hills above Pacific Coast Highway that's been evacuated, Steve Brookes, 43, and a handful of others were parked, waiting to see if the danger would pass. "This is all I know. I was born and raised here." He said it's quiet, and then "every 10 years there's something, fires or floods."
He lived through the 1971 and 1993 fires. Everybody is much more prepared this time than in 1993, when there were no airdrops and fire engines, he said. In 1993, somebody dubbed his street Miracle Park Ave., because it was not burned when much around it was. He brought with him high school yearbooks, tax returns, bank statements, two concert tickets to the Eagles, a fax machine, bicycle, computer and his dog Indy.
Nigel Cooper, 55, owns a software company and lives on Manzanita with his wife, Nancy Lindquist, 50. "Everywhere you live there is always something," he says. He used to live in London and there were problems there too. They're about to move to Oregon. "If the house burns down, at least we won't have to get a moving company."
They took out three dogs, three cats, computers, jewelry, financial papers and his father's family albums. "There's fire, there are earthquakes. You just accept the fact it could happen, and don't get excited if it does. "If it doesn't take the house, we'll go back; in the meantime, it's a beautiful day. I have to make sure I don't get sun-burned."
Nancy Evans, 63, lives on Live Oak Meadow. Her all-wood home burned down in 1993. She rebuilt it with steel and concrete and a metal roof. She was talking to neighbors about the deer. "I have a love-hate relationship with them. We love looking at them and taking pictures of them, but I have to chase them out of my yard because they eat my flowers and my plants. They've kept our yards pretty sparse this year, so that's helpful for the fire." She has a deer-crossing sign in front of her house.
A couple months ago, worried about possible fires, she moved valuables to storage. "It's a very dry year. We burned out in '93. I'm a little nervous." She removed jewelry and photos to her mother's house, and a lot of papers and Christmas decorations to a storage unit, as well as her tax returns. She had her car packed up with family videos. The 1993 fire was hotter and faster, and this time people seemed more prepared, she said. She's waiting it out as long as she can because if she leaves, she can't come back. In '93, her husband rode his bike into town then walked back up to discover the house had burned.
Larry Rick, 49, a physician's assistant at Kaiser, lives on Live Oak Meadow. He says Malibu is not just celebrities. There's a fixer-upper here and a trailer there. Malabama, they call it. About midday, residents were told to leave.
Rick has carriers for three cats, and his wife already took out important papers. Firefighters have assured him the neighborhood is very defendable. In the car he has personal pieces of art and a "get out of town" bag. "Everything else can be replaced, but I don't expect to lose anything."
Jeff Casper, 42, is holding his son Dolphan, 3, on his shoulders, and his wife Eryka Casper, 37, is holding 10-month old daughter Bella in her arms. They are outside their home on Las Flores, at the bottom of the canyon. Their son's preschool burned to ground at Malibu Presbyterian.
They have brought their son's skateboard and artwork, plaster casts of the wife when pregnant, passports, a sailboard, surfboard, design books and videos. Both cars are packed up.
They lived directly across from World Trade Center and moved to Malibu November 2001. "It's déjà vu," Casper said. Last night they made cookies and pizza for the firefighters. Eryka says, "Whether it's an urban landscape or more rural, it's always very humbling, the fragility of life."
-- Anna Gorman
Malibu:
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky blamed environmental restrictions for standing in the way of fire protection in the Malibu area.
"The Coastal Commission believes that every piece of chaparral is an environmentally sensitive plant…You’ve got to be realistic. This is the real world," he said.
The Coastal Commission does not prohibit clearing of brush. In fact, under state law since 2005, Californians must clear brush within 100 feet of their homes and other structures -- 200 feet if they live in Los Angeles County’s high-risk areas, including Malibu.
Steve Hudson, the Coastal Commission’s regional supervisor of planning and regulation, said the commission allows vegetation clearance as long as it’s consistent with that law. New developments must have brush-clearance plans approved by the county fire department, he said.
In addition, new developments in the Santa Monica Mountains area that remove chaparral or coastal sage scrub must pay a mitigation fee. The money goes into a fund for preserving the habitats for rare native animals and plants.
-- Marla Cone
Simi Valley area:
The Ventura County Sheriff's Department late Monday advised residents northeast of Simi Valley in the Bennett Road and Ditch Road areas to be prepared to leave overnight if the winds pushed the Magic Fire south. It's a pattern fire officials have seen in past Santa Ana wildfires.
-- Catherine Saillant
South San Diego County:
Cal Fire will launch a search and rescue mission Tuesday in the Harris fire scorched area to look for illegal immigrants lost or killed. The fire burned a rugged region criss-crossed by trails used by illegal immigrants. Several were discovered Sunday night injured with burns.
-- Tony Perry
Rice Fire (Fallbrook): 1,500 acres consumed, 0% contained, 30 homes damaged, 50 homes destroyed. The fire has crossed I-15 and Highway 395; 32 firefighters working.
Harris Fire: 22,000 acres burned, 5% contained, five firefighters injured, 16 civilians injured, unknown number of buildings destroyed, 400 firefighters working.
Witch Fire: 145,000 acres consumed, seven firefighters injured, one civilian injured, more than 500 houses destroyed and 200 damaged, more than 100 commercial buildings damaged, 50 outbuildings destroyed, 625 firefighters working.
-- Tony Perry
Poway:
Kevin Hitchcock, division chief of the Poway Fire Department, was touring the city in his SUV, jotting down the addresses of the opulent homes on the front line of the fire that he estimates has charred between 150 and 200 residences. Blackened buildings and houses engulfed in flames whizzed by.
"We're not putting out the fire; we're just saving as many homes as we can," Hitchcock said.
As the radio crackled with dispatchers calling out one burning location after another, a voice announced that an elderly woman, confined to her bed, was trapped in her burning home. Hitchcock picked up his radio and calmly ordered an engine to rescue her.
Then a call came in of a house gas line burning. "Nothing we can do, we've got them everywhere," he said.
The situation is so dire, Hitchcock's firefighters are only getting four hours to rest, after shifts as long as 36 hours. He had asked the region central fire commanders for 20 strike teams, each with five engines, but he only received six.
The town of 37 square miles and 48,000 residents is now at risk of losing even more homes. The blaze has traveled from the northeast corner of Poway, cutting diagonally in a southwesterly direction. In the early evening, the challenge was preventing the encroaching fire from crossing one of the town's major thoroughfares, Espola Road.
One thing is certain, Hitchcock said: Many more of Poway's exclusive mansions will burn unless more resources are provided.
-- Joel Rubin
Fire officials are trying to stop the fast-moving Witch Fire from racing westward down the San Dieguito River Valley to the ocean. Some of the priciest communities in San Diego County lie in its path: Fairbanks Ranch, Rancho Santa Fe, Del Mar and Solana Beach. The communities include gated communities, country clubs, golf courses and a polo field.
From the origin of the fire near Ramona, it is 35 miles to the ocean. "It's already halfway there," said San Diego Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque. "We're expecting the worst."
-- Tony Perry
Fallbrook:
After holding flames at bay for hours as they raked the east side of Old Route 395, firefighters could not stop the fire jumping to the west side of the highway. The fire is flaring high along both sides of road, just north of Pala Mesa Drive, near Pala Mesa Golf Course.
-- Christine Hanley
San Bernardino:
About 975 people have registered with the American Red Cross shelter in San Bernardino, according to Dianne Strutt, the shelter's manager. Some ate dinner, others dozed on cots while 20 kids played soccer in one corner of the building. Strutt said that if they break 1,000 refugees, they will open up a similar building on the fairgrounds to take in more people.
In the parking lot, a few dozen people stayed in their cars or RVs. A makeshift animal shelter maintained by the San Bernardino County Vector Control housed about 75 dogs and cats in a truck with cages, according to Mark Scina, the shelter's on-site manager.
For Jana Robertson, a 20-year resident of Crestline, the camping cots were too painful to sleep on because of a neck injury she suffered in a car accident in 2001. During the 2003 fire she stayed with friends, but this time they had moved away. So she was given some towels to roll up under her neck as she slept in her Suzuki Grand Vitara.
"You really do take for granted the luxuries back home, even if it is in the mountains. God, it'd be great to shower though."
Like many residents stranded either inside or outside the shelter, Robertson said it's painful waiting to find out the damage the fire has inflicted. "Faith is what I hope most of us have packed tonight."
-- Francisco VaraOrta
Poway:
In Poway, a city of about 50,000 people northeast of San Diego, an enormous fork of the so-called "Witch" fire exploded at dusk and began racing across hillside developments peppered with million-dollar homes. Seventy structures, almost all of them homes, had been lost by 7:30 p.m., said City Atty. Lisa Foster. About 7,000 households were under a mandatory evacuation, and about two-thirds of the town's population had left. There had been no reported injuries to firefighters or civilians.
Numerous houses had been lost on St. Andrews Drive, Old Coach Road, Old Winery Road and in the housing developments the Heritage and the Maderas.
A menacing fire was churning through the northeast portion of Poway, known as High Valley. Firefighters were attempting to block twin walls of flames from jumping over Espola Road, a main north-south thoroughfare through Poway. But they made no promises. Even with emergency aid pouring into the region, there were still just 80 firefighters in the city of Poway -- about one for every structure that had been lost. At one point Monday afternoon, three separate fires burned in Poway, each destroying structures, said Fire Division Chief Kevin Kitch.
"The entire area is just starved for resources," Kitch said. "This is just too big. There are structures being lost as we speak."
The fires were driving across the city from east to west and were not expected to stop anytime soon, Kitch said. Wind gusts of as high as 38 mph were expected on Tuesday, though the relative humidity was expected to rise a bit, perhaps to as high as 20%, he said. Firefighters were hoping that the winds might drop enough to permit large-scale air drops of water or flame retardant.
"We hope the wind moderates enough to get tankers up, just to give us a chance to breathe," Kitch said. "It's all dependent on the weather. This is a very, very intense fire, with shifting winds, driving winds, no moisture, no humidity -- in a drought-stricken area."
It added up to a night alternately terrifying and mesmerizing for residents. Many of them huddled on nearby bluffs and hilltops to watch the flames burrow down the mountain toward the center of town.
"That one started out as a tiny little flame," said Matt Simms, 24, pointing to fire on a hillside across a small valley. Flames were devouring towering trees as he spoke, and several large houses were ablaze. Like many residents, he was wearing a T-shirt wrapped around his face to guard against the smoke. "Now look at it," he said.
His parents live on the other side of that ridge, he said. They were under an evacuation order and he assumed they had escaped, he said.
"But I keep calling, and they don't answer," he said.
Jason Thompson, the owner of a local pool company, raced in a truck through a development called the Grove to evacuate an elderly client. Towering flames were consuming a house just 100 feet away as he shot toward the front gate.
"It's horrible," he said. "Just horrible."
-- Scott Gold
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