well all you curious, here is a brief history of the big fire, and how we made it through...

Somewhere in the late afternoon on Saturday, the 25th of October 2003, a very stupid and careless person set a signal fire in the forest about 5 miles south of our place, in the wind, in the brush, and it got away....... At first, the fire seemed easy to control, small, and within about 2 miles of a fire station, we watched through sundown with mild interest.... however, by 11 PM, the the east wind had picked up, the access to the fire was cut off, and many subsequent mistakes led to the largest, most destructive fire in the State's history...the wind fanned the fire at an unbelievable rate, sending it to jump the freeway I-15, more than 400 feet across and 18 miles from the origin, by mid-morning. The city was under seige, and there were real fears that the fire would go all the way to the ocean, taking hundreds of thousands of homes... really.... by noon, the fire was almost 12 miles across and into homes at several points on the eastern edge of San Diego proper...by early aftenoon, the fire had a front of more than 20 miles....and two more fires had started with great damage and loss of life in the north and south edges of the county..... Meanwhile, we sat on the deck at the Loft and watched the back side of the fire move slowly, but steadily, eastward against the 50 mph winds and toward Julian, and the mountains.... a chilling sight, at that time (Sunday about noon) we had just bid good by to our weekend guests at the Loft and had alerted the cabin guests that they might have to evacuate...a neighbor came by to look at the fire, we chatted about the possibility of the wind changing, and as we spoke, the wind shifted to the west...(from the west) and within a few minutes, the flames were towering above the Tellam Ranch only a mile from the house....still, we thought the crews could get a handle on it.... we, of course, had no way of knowing that there were only two engine companies left on the east side of the fire, and that all access from the west was cut off... no help on the way, we were on our own. Then, at about 2:30, we were evacuated by two highway patrol officers running from house to house, fears were that our only escape road would be cut off so we joined a neighbor for the treck to the relative saffety of the desert... at this time, we were perhaps in denial, perhaps treating this fire as we had the last year's fire, perhaps just too rushed to be logical... for whatever reason, we packed very lightly (like for an overnight), cats in their carriers, and left .... thinking we could return the next day... after all, the fire crews had snuffed the last year's fire with very few losses...
. After two very difficult, cramped, uncomfortable nights in a trailer with three other families, our cats, no power, no phone, no communication, one toilet, and 90 degrees....still, we were grateful to the shelter, others from Julian and Ramona, and Cuyamaca had been directed to the local school....cots, no privacy, and the pets would have been exiled to the truck... fat chance if you know Nan....we decided to leave... ...... finally, we got a cell phone to work, contacted Ed and Dawn Glass of the Butterfield B&B who were still in Julian, and decided to make a run for home... had to see, and they told us we could stay with them... so, repack, cats and all for the trip up the mountain....on the right is a photo of what greeted us at Scissors' Crossing... not a good scene.....it seems that since we had talked to Ed and Dawn, the fire had taken a little turn for the worse and the town itself was being threatened....we continued...into a very strange world...this was Tuesday, the 28th.... not a good day it turns out, at least for our mountains.....and homes....		the view from S-2 junction in the desert
We had expected worse actually, but what greeted us was a town in retreat... We were stopped at the junction of Pine Hills Road and 78 by a Highway Patrol officer, obviously in over her head with about 25 very irate residents wanting by, some walking in, and general chaos... We walked to the top of the first hill with Don Weeke, another artist in the area to survey our chances... looked pretty bad, but the fire was still not visible... About this time, a Sheriff's Deputy and friend stopped to help the CHP and I chanced a favor.... reluctantly, he agreed to let us go in but promised no support.... we still had the cats with us so decided to drop them at Ed and Dawn's first...they checked into a now familiar situation, under the bed..... we unloaded our stuff from the truck and went back to see if Jim would still let us in.... he did....
We dropped in behind a "fire spotter" (sort of forward observer) on the way into the Hill and began a very strange journey.... first, after the spotter turned off, we realized that we were very much alone...the smoke was dense, and there were no creatures or persons anywhere... I carried the camera and grabbed the shot on the right of the deck along the Gallery Room, turned out to be the last one of the building.... as I moved up the deck, Nan was downstairs hosing the building down, I looked up and grabbed another shot.... tis time of the edge of the fire storm... that is what is coloring the cloud in the left edge, perhaps only a few hundred yards away, maybe closer... At this point, I realized the gravity of the situation, ran into the house and grabbed a bag of food, some whisky, and dumped them in the truck... another run with some of the carpets, a few images, some files and a call to Nan to get out.... on this trip to the truck, a last "spotter" appeared in the yard with an astonished look.... "what the___ are you doing here... the fire was supposed to be here five minutes ago..." and he left... hmmmm... time for a pause.... we had only been here about ten or fifteen minutes and already the fire was changing... a sudden blast of cool air from behind us really sent chills... this is the back-wind of the fire, too damn close... so, we jumped in the truck and made a run for it...	the last photo.... 1 PM Tuesday the 28th of October note the odd color.... fire light, and it was very much darker than this image shows.... magic film	the fire cloud, perhaps just below the barn...
By now the smoke was really dense, like night fog, and travel was slow... as we rounded the turn at Garcia's, we realized we were totally alone out here.... not a good feeling as we still didn't know exactly where the fire was or if we would suddenly encounter a wall of it.... turns out, we didn't, the cats aren't orphans..... we saw the last two fire trucks at the junction of Deer Lake, two miles from the house, and pointed in the same direction as us.... out.....I thanked Jim at the junction, told him he was right, and drove on... this time we new in our hearts that it was over....
When we got back to the Butterfield, things had turned even worse... the evacuation of all Julian was starting..... Ed and Nan and I walked to town to see if we could get information about Pine Hills and to just have what we thought might be a last look... the place was full of fire engines, one on every corner... and the fire was visible on the south hill top, and to the west too.... we heard a short message on the scanner that "looks like we lost the big building and the little cabin with blue roof.... " we cried......   Back at Butterfield, we called my brother in Chula Vista and asked for refuge... eagerly granted, he had just returned from his son's home on the western edge of the fire, saved by massive effort.... and would welcome us... the trip involved more than 180 miles of detour as all western routes were still closed, had to go north into Riverside county and then south....tiring and a bit surreal... here we are in strip mall land of Temecula, ragged, worn, and sad....thanks Ken and Edna for saving us once again.... see how happy we are..... it would be another 5 days before we could get back in....   what greeted us was beyond our imaginations, CLICK HERE for the image files.......