Nick Roman
October 24, 2007
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Finally, Southern California got a break. The fierce Santa Ana winds that had shoved wildfires hard to the west let up. That gave firefighters a chance to knock down flames, and it gave homeowners who'd fled a chance to see what happened back home. KPCC Senior News Editor Nick Roman spoke with two KPCC reporters who've been covering two of the worst fires in San Diego.
Nick Roman: Wednesday was the first chance many of the thousands of San Diego area residents had to see what a string of wildfires had done to their neighborhoods.
In Poway, the fire hopscotched its way down the streets, skipping over one house, burning down the next. KPCC's Brooke Binkowski walked along one street in Poway and met a couple of contractors who'd stooped by to see if they could help.
Brooke Binkowski: They helped build several of the homes out here, and they were driving through the neighborhood, offering to rebuild the homes. Their houses had burned down but it said it made them feel better to give back to the community. They call San Diego the biggest small town there is, and sometimes that can be really stifling if you've grown up here, as I have. But the very good side of it is people are willing to step up. They do feel like they're in a small town.
Roman: Further down the block were Carly and Jeff, a Poway couple that still had a house because they made sure they would still have a house.
Binkowski: Carly and Jeff stood on their rooftop with garden hoses the night of the fire a couple nights ago and kept their house wet and their neighbors' houses wet, and basically saved three houses doing so. And then the house at the end of the block, they couldn't reach it, and so it burned down.
Roman: So they saved their house with a garden hose?
Binkowski: Yeah. They kept their house so damped down, so soaked that the fire barely touched it.
Roman: That's a remarkable story, but it's not the sort of thing firefighters encourage. It might work in Poway, where you have paved streets and quick exits. KPCC's Julie Small, who's been covering the Harris Fire close to the Mexican border, says the roads in San Diego County's back country are narrow and twisty. It's tough for fire crews to get to the flames. And when a stubborn homeowner decides to make a heroic stand to save a house, it puts everyone at risk.
Small: You only hear the stories of people who tried to save their houses and succeeded. And maybe it was worth it in that instance. But we don't know what price was paid, either. We don't know what was lost or what, what a fire crew might not have been able to do because that person decided to stay in there. And at least on this fire, the four firefighters that were injured were injured because they went in to save a father and son and pull them out of their home.
Roman: Federal officials say about 900 firefighters will arrive in California to join the crews already at work. That's a lot of help, but the best help of all came in a weather report. The winds are down and temperatures are falling – and that's the best news a scorched Southern California has heard for nearly a week.
