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Letter to the editor

Winds blazed weeklong path of destruction, devastation

The force of the Santa Ana winds shocked even weather experts.

SAN DIEGO - From almost the beginning, this Santa Ana was different.

Meteorologist Philip Gonsalves recognized it when he saw the smoke through the picture windows of the National Weather Service station in Rancho Bernardo, closing in on the office itself. He had helped forecast the tempest: an ominous combination of strong gusts, low humidity and soaring temperatures.

In weather speak: red-flag fire conditions.

Fire Battalion Chief Tom Zeulner understood it, too, when en route to his first blaze of the week, his wife called to tell him that five more had begun.

By Saturday, more than half a million acres would be gone, 1,700 homes destroyed, with the damage surpassing $1-billion.

Stunned homeowners who just last weekend were setting out Halloween decorations and watching football would find themselves sifting through kindling and ash, mumbling: This used to be my kitchen. This used to be my bedroom.

Although the winds were different, no one could have predicted just how deadly and destructive.

'It's begun'

Gonsalves usually takes things in stride, especially the weather, perhaps because he knows it so well. He knows how easily a fire can kick up when the winds get going, and computer models at work had predicted a nasty Santa Ana for days. And so, last Sunday morning when he stepped out of church and sniffed smoke, he was hardly surprised.

"It's begun," he thought. "Here we go again."

The surprise came hours later, when Gonsalves arrived home from the gym and turned on the news.

Fires were everywhere:

-The Ranch Fire, sparked at 9:42 p.m. Saturday, racing through 500 acres about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

-The Canyon Fire, ignited at 4:50 a.m. Sunday in Malibu, forcing 1,500 people - even Hollywood's elite - to evacuate.

-The Harris Fire, begun at 9:23 a.m. southeast of San Diego, exploding to 500 acres in just over three hours.

-The Witch Creek Fire, burning at 12:37 p.m. in a mountain town northeast of San Diego, consuming 3,000 acres in two hours.

At the National Weather Service office in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo, Gonsalves' colleagues watched as satellite images showed plume after plume of smoke roaring over a swath of Southern California.

Zeulner, a 33-year veteran, was alarmed by what he heard on the radio. Winds were gusting from 60 to 80 mph; in some places, they exceeded 100 mph.

"That's hurricane force," thought Zeulner, who knew from experience that anything over 60 mph was unusual during Santa Ana season.

Reverse 911

Dan Crane awoke early Monday and looked at the clock: 4 a.m. He smelled smoke coming through his bedroom window, but when he got up to shut it, he heard something on the street below. A car honking, he thought. He peered outside.

Rancho Bernardo's Lancashire Way, Crane's home for 20 years, looked like an erupting volcano.

"We gotta go!" he yelled to his wife, Sherry, still in bed. "Now!"

Their neighbor's wooden fence was ablaze, the palm trees in front of that house igniting like matchsticks. Glowing embers shot horizontally across the street.

Across San Diego County, reverse 911 calls alerted residents to fires that had gone out of control overnight. In a day, the Witch Creek Fire grew from 3,000 acres to 30,000, hitting the communities of Rancho Bernardo, Escondido, Rancho Santa Fe, Poway - taking out multimillion-dollar estates and modest ranch homes.

The biggest evacuation in California history was just getting started. An estimated 560,000 people would be told to leave their homes in San Diego County alone. Qualcomm Stadium, home to the NFL's San Diego Chargers, was opened to evacuees. The Del Mar Fairgrounds and schools housed others.

At the Weather Service office, Gonsalves arrived just after 6 a.m. Monday to start his regular shift. He saw the smoke hanging low out the window, the line of cars snaking down West Bernardo Drive. Three hours later, the forecasters received a reverse 911.

They, too, packed up and decamped.

Even as President Bush arrived on Thursday, offering words of comfort, there was more devastating news: A 58-year-old mortgage broker and his 55-year-old wife, a teacher, were found in the rubble of an Escondido home. Another 52-year-old man died after refusing to leave his house during evacuations. The remains of four others, believed to be illegal immigrants, were found near the border. Authorities said the deaths were due to the fires.

Come Friday, Gonsalves and his colleagues were back at their computers at the weather office, swapping war stories in between work about their own fire encounters.

At 6 a.m. Saturday, Zeulner and his crew reported for yet another day of duty in San Diego.

"I got in the fire service to help people," he said, his eyes reddening with tears because, despite so much loss, he believes he did help people. "It's a good feeling."

At the remains of his burned home on Lancashire Way, Dan Crane's eyes were noticeably dry of tears. Instead, there was a sense of optimism in him and the neighbors who flooded back to begin cleaning up, and returned Saturday to pick up more pieces.

"Did I want to start over at this time in my life? No," 60-year-old Crane said. "But my family is fine. I'm fine."

[Last modified October 28, 2007, 01:36:14]