FIRES STILL BURNING

Just because many people are being let back into Valley Center, we should not forget that many of our neighbors are still under the threat of fire.

Thursday night Ray Flores, our photographer, and I took a drive along Hwy 76 to see what we could see. Between Pauma Valley and Palomar Mountain we saw several instances of homes that had burned.

We found the home of our great friend, the artist Chris the Woodcutter, which had sadly burned with all of those marvelous wood sculptures. Truly a tragedy!

We found evidence of fire up the South Grade, but at the top I was delighted to find that Crestline has not yet lost any homes. I even visited my own cabin and found that it was OK.

No electricity up there as yet, and probably won't be for another week. Ditto for returning residents. There's still too many spot fires burning. On the way up we saw many trees with glowing embers.

It is still dangerous up there. DO NOT GO UP THERE! The authorities will let you know when you can safely return.

We walked in on a staff debriefing with Chief George Lucia and his volunteers. Not enough can ever be said about these folks who saved their homes and that of their neighbors,and will continue to battle the menace along the fire lines.

It was heartening and deeply touching as the chief asked each of his firefighters to express his or her thoughts about the fire. I'll wrote more about this when i have a chance to think about it a little more.

I found out that most Palomar refugees are living the high life at a hotel evacuation center at Borrego Springs. Actually, I doubt that they are living the high life, but at least it's not the low life!

We continued our trip down the 76 to Casino Pauma where we drove into the eerily deserted parking lot and took a picture of a fire that appeared to be marching down the slopes overlooking the casino. That's part of Palomar Mountain also.

It looked either like a glowing necklace in the night or a lava flow. Choose your metaphors.

But it was part of a longer, meandering line of fires that stretched along the mountain, and appeared to me like it was moving down and menacing the valley. I'm not a fire professional, so don't take my word for that.

The latest fire report from CalFire refers to this area:

"Pauma Reservation and Palomar Mtn. areas are still active. Fire has entered the Aqua Tibia Wilderness. Control operations are difficult within this area due to steep terrain, inaccessibility and lack of crew resources. Active structure protection in Mt. Palomar area. 450 structures threatened. A general assessment of structures lost is in progress."


That's undoubtedly the glowing fires that people on Pauma Heights and the high school have been asking about.

It's certainly a concern.

More tomorrow.