Bad Fires and Good People

This is the fourth day of the fires in San Diego County. From the safe vantage point of an Indian horse camp, 70 miles east of the city, I am watching coverage of the disasters occurring from the Mexican border to the Orange and Riverside County lines. The scenes of the fire are eerily alike. When they switch from a picture of a dangerous place in the south to another in the worst fire areas in the north, you can hardly see any difference. You see long lines of flames with a background of smoke that obscures everything else. Occasionally an aircraft appears out of the smoke and gloom, and drops retardant. Up near the Riverside county line one fire is said to be advancing in a 50-mile continuous line.

I am appalled to hear that the historical ‘apple pie’ town of Julian has a complete mandatory evacuation order. That is an area of tall pine trees. They have fires every year mostly caused by firebugs. They have had one earlier this year. Never have I heard of a total evacuation of Julian. Even more amazing is Ramona, a sizable town of 10,000 or more down the mountain from Julian. They had mandatory evacuation two days ago! Of course not everyone obeys, but those that stay don’t have any electricity or water, and face possible prosecution later.

To me, the most amazing thing in this entire emergency is the spirit of the people. When a call has gone out for volunteers in any certain situation, they are inundated with people until they have to put out pleas to stop. There are over 12,000 evacuees at Qualcom Stadium, many with their pets and horses in addition to their children and extended family. When the numbers rose to about 10,000, a request for supplies was broadcast. Individuals and businesses swamped them with everything from toothpaste, cots, blankets, and toys, to food and water for both people and animals. For the last 24 hours they have been pleading for all the goodhearted people to quit bringing stuff! It’s like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

I’m listening now, to one reporter from San Diego interviewing one from Kiev, Russia. The foreign reporter is comparing what is happening here, with what happened in New Orleans after Katrina. He is saying something about us learning from that disaster. Hah! That is not the difference. All of California is used to handling disasters, and always already have their act together long before any federal agencies get involved. In fact, I wonder if anyone else beside me had sinking feelings when Chertoff made his pronouncements about what Homeland Defense will do. They do have programs and money to help the stricken people, but when it comes to coordinating the various local agencies, our local people couldn’t do it better. The news people keep mentioning how smoothly things are working between city, county, state, and military forces. Mr. Chertoff, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Earlier an admiral offered shelter at San Diego Naval Base, North Island Naval Station, and even aboard some ships, where they would have beds, food from the galley, medical facilities, and even movies. This was offered only to retired and active duty military families, but this is a navy and marine town and lots of them elect to retire here in this nice climate, so the offer can help take the burden off civilian efforts.

San Diego City and County are also a tourist trap, with quite a few attractions like Sea World, Scripps, Balboa Park, and the Wild Animal Park. San Diego advertises itself as "America’s Finest City’. In view of all the pot-holes, an almost bankrupt budget, the city pension plan in peril, that is a doubtful claim. But when it comes to the people who live here, and the way they take care of each other, it could be true.

At last count Channel 8 newscast said there are now 13 separate fires in the county, and none of them is more than 10% contained. Hundreds of homes and people are still in danger. As long as the wind stays below 15 mph, and firefighting aircraft can drop retardant as fast as they can, there is hope of containing this fire by Nov. 4. If we have a repeat of the high winds, it’s another story.