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This Morning’s News
Posted on October 26, 2003 in Adolescence Old Fire
Fox News says that all is well. The Los Angeles Times says:
Cyclones of embers tore through the historic San Bernardino neighborhood of Del Rosa, setting dozens of houses ablaze. Flames leapt from building to building along cul-de-sacs on the edge of the foothills, as palm and pine trees exploded in flames. As residents fled, some homeowners ignored the order, wrapped towels over their faces and attempted to save their homes with garden hoses….
The blaze, 50 miles east of Los Angeles, spread rapidly along two fronts and late Saturday threatened to burn explosively dry forests devastated by drought and bark beetles….
The so-called Old Fire in San Bernardino devoured more than 10,000 acres of forest land and scores of homes in the Del Rosa Estates area and along Quail Canyon. As of late Saturday, fire officials said more than 200 homes and other structures were destroyed, said San Bernardino Fire Chief Larry Pitzer.
“My house is already gone,” cried Sonia Sanchez as she stood amid a blizzard of ash and smoke at the corner of Del Rosa Avenue and Marshall Boulevard. “The fire moved so fast that all we got out was my family and our cars.”
Fanned by gusts of more than 50 mph, the blaze exploded into a two-headed firestorm that spread east through a neighborhood of half-million-dollar homes in Quail Canyon, and west to the campus of Cal State San Bernardino.
The intersections that have been named are too damned close to my mother’s house for comfort.
Fox News put its big focus on this:
“We’re mentally prepared for at least two days,” said one evacuee, Woody Andrews of Running Springs. The 50-year-old contractor was staying at the Lake Arrowhead Hilton Resort, which had made rooms available to evacuees for $19 a night.
“They have a pool and cable. It’s nice,” said Andrews.
Oh how nice of the Hilton. Charging a mere $19 (the cost of a room in Primm, Nevada on the stateline) for those left homeless by the blaze. Keeps the riffraff from mingling with the elite. And how responsible of Fox News to report it without mentioning these details from the LA Times report:
By 9:40 p.m., a separate fire in Crestline had prompted mandatory evacuations of Twin Peaks, Blue Jay and Crestline communities and closed Highway 330, the route to Big Bear, to all traffic. Federal officials Saturday closed the San Bernardino National Forest to all visitors.
The Rim of the World Highway to Lake Arrowhead was shut down, as was a portion of Interstate 10 near San Bernardino for a time. A Southern California Edison spokesman said the blaze knocked out power to Running Springs, Crestline and Lake Arrowhead, and will be out indefinitely.
Which means that the Hilton may itself be evacuated. Once more Fox jumps on the disaster party boat. It’s time for Fox News to stop being a corporate shill and report the news realistically. If you want the news, don’t watch the Happy Pill Channel.
We’re going in today, as close as we can manage to find out where the fire has been stopped or diverted. (It sounds like it could have hit the freeway and split to spread along the northern end of the city.)
A quick historic note: the brush has been burned over before. I remember seeing blazes crossing the hills back in the 1970s. Lines of orange advanced and left nothing but black behind them. We watched at night.
This fire reminds me of the 1980 Panorama Fire which took place over the week of Thanksgiving. The fire began in the same area, but burned southwest instead of southeast. It ripped through 600 homes. I remember going back later that year and seeing the houses reduced to foundations and nothing more.
Wildfire is a greater threat in my mind than earthquakes. The latter is over in seconds and the cleanup can begin almost immediately. In this former case, there’s a waiting. We don’t know if our house was spared or not and may not know until tomorrow.
Another family member, Lynn’s cousin Ann and her boys live in Crestline. I don’t know where they are.
