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San Diego:
At about 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, 75-year-old Don Jenkinson's life at the retirement home was thrown into upheaval.
Grab three things: your medication, your identification and a change of clothes, he was told. Soon he and 120 other residents of the Mount Miguel Covenant Village Retirement Community in Spring Valley were lining up to board buses.
"We could see the flames," he recalled. "It was scary."
The facility was in the path of the Harris fire burning along the Mexican border. The buses were moving residents several miles away to a shelter at the San Diego High School gym.
Things were calmer by Tuesday afternoon. Jenkinson was playing a word puzzle in the campus courtyard. Other retirees were playing bridge; some took strolls.
They have what they need and they're being treated well, Jenkinson said.
-- Ari Bloomekatz
Gov. Schwarzenegger announced a toll-free hot line for businesses to donate large amounts to Southern California fire victims. The line, 800-750-2858, will be staffed from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
El Cajon:
With the Harris fire churning to the west, El Cajon became a whirlwind of activity Tuesday night. Cars streamed into motels. At a Best Western, as a haze of smoke settled into the nearby foothills, workers hurriedly sawed the largest limbs from a patch of eucalyptus trees.
The hotel had been busy with fire evacuees since Sunday and was full at one point. Earlier Tuesday, some evacuation orders were lifted in places like Scripps Ranch, and rooms became available. They soon filled up with evacuees from new communities threatened by the advancing blaze. By nightfall, the hotel had just three rooms left again.
Richard and Christina Greer of Lakeside and their sons, 4-year-old Jaimin and 5-month-old Jayce, made a run for it on Monday. Unable to find an available hotel room, they evacuated to Christina's sister's house, but that was in Santee -- not much of an improvement. Once Christina learned that some evacuation orders had been lifted, she tried again, this time finding a room at the Best Western. They arrived about 6 p.m., toting Oreos, toy airplanes and a pillow covered in a pillowcase from the movie "Cars." Jaimin was still wearing the pajamas he'd been in for two days.
"It's been crazy," Christina Greer said.
She said there had been widespread confusion in Lakeside about whether or not they were under an evacuation order.
"But with two kids, we were out of there," she said, as Jayce chewed on her finger. "We weren't going to take any chances."
-- Scott Gold
Saugus:
Thirty-two structures were lost in the Buckweed fire north of Saugus, including 15 homes, said Fire Inspector Frank Garrido of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
"There were 38 miles of fire lines to contain, and we have 80% containment," he said. All roads were opened up to residents, except for the northern end of Bouquet Canyon Road, he said.
Four injuries were reported, minor ones for two civilians and one firefighter, and more serious ones for another civilian, he said.
--Tami Abdollah
La Jolla:
Late Tuesday, UC San Diego Medical Center's burn unit received more fire victims.
Among the 17 patients are five firefighters, caught while battling the Harris fire in the border area of south San Diego County, according to Dr. Raul Coimbra, the hospital's chief of trauma, surgical critical care and burns. This is the county's only regional burn center.
Two of firefighters, brought in Sunday, were in critical condition with serious burns to their faces and upper extremities and inhalation injuries, caused by breathing in fiery smoke, he said. Three others were in fair-to-good condition. A sixth firefighter was discharged today.
Coimbra said it was tough for the doctors and nurses to see the firefighters in such a bad way.
"They bring in burn patients every day to us and it's hard to see them getting hurt," he said.
Other patients were civilians who "stayed where they were too long," Coimbra said. But one group of patients was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"We had a number of people that we call 'border-crossers' that got caught in the fire in the area of Tecate," he said, explaining that the information came from the paramedics who brought them in.
Social workers must wait for some of these patients, who remain in critical condition, to become well enough to give them some way to contact relatives. "Nobody will come to the hospital looking for them," he said.
Other info:
*The unit's patients were burned on 2% to 60% of their bodies. Patients who suffer severe inhalation injuries must be sedated so that a ventilator can breath for them. They also are given fluids and pain medications.
*The unit has 8 intensive care beds and 20 intermediate and floor beds, and can access 26 more surgical intensive care beds.
* Only one admission today, a firefighter.
-- Tracy L. Weber
Chula Vista:
Navy pilots James Cluxton and Don Garcia lifted off in two SH-60 twin engine helicopters at about 9 a.m. Tuesday morning to help fight the eastern end of the Harris fire, which was threatening communities around Spring Valley and eastern Chula Vista.
The men dropped dozens of 420-gallon buckets of water, successfully knocking back the fire around the Sweetwater reservoir.
Cluxton and Garcia both said they were frustrated with other difficulties they had battling the flames.
At noon, the two helicopters had been attacking a larger portion of the fire near Spring Valley, and had successfully contained it, but had to break away to refuel on Imperial Beach. When they came back about 20 minutes later, the fire had re-consumed the hill they had just cleared.
"You almost feel like you did it all for naught," Garcia said, adding that they had to spend about two more hours fighting the flames in that same spot.
Cluxton and Garcia are "High Rollers," a nickname for their air crew stationed at the Navy base on Coronado.
Brian Wilderman, another pilot who worked Monday combating the Witch fire in the northern part of the county, said he had recently returned from a deployment to Baghdad. The flying conditions Monday in San Diego were as hostile as those in Baghdad, except "we weren't worried about being shot at," he said with a laugh.
-- Ari Bloomekatz
El Cajon:
Frustrated with a lack of answers from law enforcement officials, many evacuees have developed a new trick for checking -- maybe -- whether their home survived. They call their house every hour or so, and as long as they get the answering machine, they assume it's still standing. It's a simple ploy that refugees have passed through word of mouth.
"It's a good sign, right?" said Linda Stillwell, who evacuated from Ramona on Monday night and is staying with her husband, Bob Stillwell, and her dog, Gidget, at a hotel in El Cajon. "So I just keep on calling."
-- Scott Gold
Santiago Canyon:
When Julie Ann Treloar, 47, and her three children were evacuated from their home in Santiago Canyon Estates about 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, Treloar drove to a park at the entrance of the development to watch the fire. Before the family sat down to a picnic lunch of barbecue sandwiches, French fries and cole slaw that a neighbor had brought them, Treloar said a prayer:
"Dear God, we pray you put these fires out and protect our neighbors and pray that they get out in time."
Treloar said her children, Sterling, 9, Tivoli, 6, and Hudson, 4, hadn't eaten all day. "I thought this was a nice picnic in the park. I wish it were under different circumstances."
-- Jason Song
San Diego County:
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, state public health officials said they were aware of at least 11 nursing homes that had evacuated as a result of the wildfires in San Diego County. Residents have since returned to three of those homes; the remaining eight homes account for 578 displaced residents.
Several other healthcare facilities also have evacuated.
"The primary focus of the last 24 hours is to make sure patients are placed at the correct level of care and that we respond very, very quickly," said Kathleen Billingsley, deputy director for the Center for Healthcare Quality at the California Department of Public Health.
"There are a significant number of people, of patients, of elderly that have been impacted by this series of fires throughout southern California. Basically these people have been displaced."
A spokeswoman at the California Assn. of Health Facilities said that if the fires headed toward Fallbrook, another eight to 10 homes may have to evacuate.
--Charlie Ornstein
Qualcomm Stadium:
Saturday was his day off and Tim Bright of Ramona decided to take his family on a day trip to Yuma to visit relatives.
The family of four, Amanda, 33, Ivy, 3, and Matthew, 2, took only a change of clothes.
The Santa Ana winds were beginning to stir but Bright, 42, didn't give it a second thought.
Sunday morning, as they drove home, the news reports about the Malibu fire began. High winds forced them to turn around at El Centro.
"Late Sunday we heard a report about a San Diego fire but most Ramona stations were preoccupied with the Malibu fire," said Bright, a tow-truck driver.
The family learned about the fire in Ramona in El Centro on their way to San Diego. It was a tense five-hour drive from there, made worse when Bright heard that law enforcement officials had closed access to Ramona.
The family pulled into Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego at 4 p.m. Monday.
"We don't know if we own anything other than what we have with us and in our van," said Amanda Bright. "We keep asking people if our apartment is still standing. But nobody knows."
The fire is a painful reminder of a 1974 wildfire that destroyed his family's home in Harbison Canyon, east of downtown San Diego, said Tim Bright.
"This is the third devastating fire that has affected my life, " he said. "I hope to God it's the last."
On Tuesday, Bright got some more bad news. The tow truck company he works for in El Cajon threatened to fire him if he did not report for work, he said.
"I'm homeless for all practical purposes," he said. "They want me to leave my wife and kids in a tent in parking lot. We have nowhere to go and now I may not have a job."
-- H. G. Reza
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