Camp Pendleton evacuation criticized

The top Marine Corps general got an earful of criticism and some thanks from Marine spouses Friday while touring Camp Pendleton, where fire disrupted training and forced evacuation of some 800 family members.

"We were evacuated at 2:30 a.m. and it was pretty much hysteria," one woman told Commandant Gen. James Conway during a question-and-answer session following his brief remarks. "Is there a standard emergency evacuation plan for the military?"

Another wife said she was given "way too much conflicting information" in the hours that preceded Wednesday morning's evacuation.

Conway deflected the questions to Col. James Seaton, commanding officer of the sprawling base.

"It wasn't perfect," Seaton said. "I apologize for having to wake you up at 2:30 a.m., but the winds were unpredictable."

Another military wife thanked the Marines for "an outstanding effort that went beyond the call of duty and I want to let you know my family is very appreciative of your efforts."

The Horno fire, which disrupted training for Marines set to deploy to Iraq, has burned 20,000 acres but was expected to be 100% contained by Friday night, a Cal Fire spokesman said.

-- David McKibben

San Bernardino won't immediately release list of destroyed homes

San Bernardino County officials said late Friday that they're not ready to release a list of homes damaged and destroyed in the Slide and Grass Valley fires. Earlier, they said they hoped to release the list today on the county assessor's site. No word on when the list might be posted, according to a written statement from a county spokesperson.

Guest post: Not all back to normal

Scott Lewis is executive editor at voiceofsandiego.org. He is among members of the community we have asked to post thoughts, news and follow-ups to the wildfire story.

Yesterday I wrote a column about a San Diego resident named Cheryl Hamano and the challenge of measuring a disaster.

I had met Hamano and her family four years ago after they lost their home in the Cedar Fire. It was by sheer luck that the family had been able to evacuate during that firestorm. Their daughter had gotten up early on a Sunday morning to go to the bathroom. She had smelled smoke and looked outside. Another teenager was running in the street and told her to get out.

The family left just before flames consumed their house. Cheryl had no time to grab her purse. She was left with no official proof of who she was.

Quite a story.

Since then, the family rebuilt. But the marriage dissolved -- the stress of reconstruction didn't help. Cheryl had to move into a rented house in the same neighborhood.

And, this week, she found herself being evacuated again. The flames stayed away from her home but she said the experience of fleeing the fire was much more orderly this time around. She had plenty of warning and plenty of time to collect the most valuable of possessions.

She said dealing with the insurance company was more difficult than she had hoped. She said that unlike her neighbors, the family's new house was not much bigger than the one they lost. After the divorce, she had to sell and move out dropping the price over and over again in a slumping real estate market.

She said that the stress the fire caused has never really gone away.

"People think once you rebuild from the fire that it's all back to normal," she said. "But it's not -- not always."

-- Scott Lewis

362 homes lost in Running Springs and Grass Valley Lake

San Bernardino Mountains:

Firefighters reported 20% containment on the Slide fire, which had bored through 13,700 acres by this evening. Officials said they lost 201 residences and 3 outbuildings. There was only one home lost today, in Running Springs. With resources freed up from other fires, the total number of personnel jumped from 1,359 this morning to 1,964 by this evening.

The Grass Valley fire was 75% contained at 1,140 acres. Twenty homes were damaged and 162 destroyed, according to the new estimates.

-- Maeve Reston

Evacuation lifted for Julian, Cuyamaca

San Diego County:

Evacuation orders for the rural communities of Julian, Wynola, Cuyamaca and Pine Hills, all once threatened by the eastward march of the Witch fire, were lifted Friday night.

-- Tony Perry

Hometown fire chief faces neighbors who lost houses

Running Springs:

In the first quiet day in Running Springs, the fire chief who watched his town nearly go up in smoke finally found some quiet moments to sift through paperwork. Chief Bill Smith was up for the first 50 hours of the San Bernardino Mountain firestorm -- among the first to respond to the Grass Valley Fire and then racing back to the Slide when it flared up in his community a short time later.

Firefighters lost the last structure in Running Springs this morning. In the early evening, the fatigue was finally settling in.

"When you have homes burning you have enough adrenaline that it kind of keeps you going," said Smith, who spent 30 years fighting fires with the U.S. Forest Service before retiring as the Mountaintop Division Chief. "Once in a while you get to the point where you're exhausted but you just move on."

"The hardest thing for any fire chief is to lose any structures... but especially the impact of losing so many homes is just heartwrenching,"

Smith has been the Running Springs chief for nine years.

"Most of us fight fires a lot of years and go to other people's jurisdiction fighting fires, but it's a totally different feeling when it's your own community."

Not only would he have to contend with residents coming back to homes that have vanished into ash, but fire continues to burn in the steep, inaccessible canyons to the west.

"That will pose a threat possibly until the snow flies," he said.

-- Maeve Reston

Guest post: Fire and football

Scott Lewis is executive editor at voiceofsandiego.org. He is among members of the community we have asked to post thoughts, news and follow-ups to the current Southern California wildfire story.

Throughout the week of fire, there has been a series of headlines usually tucked in below all of the important news. The stream of updates had to do with what seemed like an overly agonizing decision about when and where to play the Chargers game. Government and team officials passed this decision around like the hottest of potatoes. And they just passed it off completely. The game had been scheduled for Sunday.

About Tuesday, as the fires were raging and causing evacuations all the way to the coast, the Chargers decided to move their practices to Arizona.

By Wednesday, they had decided to pass the decision on when the game would occur over to San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders:

The Chargers are fully prepared to implement whatever decision the Mayor makes, including either playing the game at Qualcomm Stadium or relocating the game to another facility out of the San Diego area.

The mayor on Thursday sent the decision back to the Chargers:

"Should they decide to play in San Diego, the stadium will be ready on Sunday," said Fred Sainz, the mayor's spokesman. "It's their decision to play in San Diego or not."

Neither side wanted to be saddled with responsibility for a potentially controversial choice. After all, the air in San Diego is still hazy. The fires are still burning in parts of the county. It doesn't take a genius
to figure out some choice criticism for the team or the city for callously putting resources into a game.

So no decision came.

Until Friday, when the NFL stepped in. Chargers President Dean Spanos explained that, after all that, it was the NFL's choice all along.

Firefighters working on fumes

Lake Arrowhead:

Deep in the pines of the San Bernardino National Forest, about four miles east of where the Slide fire began in Green Valley Lake, firefighters struggled with exhaustion as they beat down hot spots with shovels and axes.

The goal was to build a containment line around Crab Flats before a predicted wind shift Sunday that could direct the fire toward Lake Arrowhead and possibly parts of Running Springs again. But the adrenaline was gone.

"We're all at a kind of plodding pace, everyone has got blisters on top of blisters and we're losing our voices," said Mike Rigney, a Lake Arrowhead-based fire captain with the San Bernardino Fire Department.

Sleep? "We got four or five hours somewhere in the third day," Rigney said.

Silverado Canyon fire history

Silverado Canyon:

Though Silverado Canyon, with its steep walls, narrow roads, mature trees and chaparral is a potential tinderbox, it has managed to escape major damage from wildfires in modern times. Silverado Canyon was untouched even by the 1967 Paseo Grande fire, which blackened nearly 49,000 acres and burned 51 homes, mostly in the canyons and foothills of east Orange County. The blaze was marching toward the canyon, but it changed directions at the last moment and burned Black Star Canyon.

-- William Lobdell

Governor strikes triumphant note

Sacramento:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his aides today struck a triumphant and self-congratulatory note as they attempted to show that they were moving into the recovery phase of the 2007 California fire disaster.

Schwarzenegger called cabinet members and agency heads to his Office of Emergency Services headquarters at the former Mather Air Force base for a 20-minute session in front of reporters to discuss recovery efforts. The governor, flanked by other state officials, then walked into a state operations center and thanked emergency services workers who helped coordinate the response.

"This is not over, I just want you to know," Schwarzenegger said. "I always say, this is the sprint. Now comes the marathon."