(Hopefully) Last fire update
It looks like things have settled down, so I think this will be the last fire update, though probably not the last thing you hear from me about these as there's going to be a lot of rebuilding going on in San Diego over the next couple of years.
The good news is that about 50,000 people were allowed to return home last night. This apparently covered areas of PQ, but I haven't seen any official notice saying that that area has been reopened. There is a phone number for residents returning to Poway only: 858-513-2800 . The trouble with determining PQ status this whole time is that in the last three days I've heard maybe one media reference to "Rancho Penasquitos" -- everyone else seems to think the area qualifies either as part of Poway or as some vague "north county" that covers everything north of the 56 from Del Mar to southern Ramona. But PQ has been out of the woods for awhile and it sounds like some are returning home. Parts of Encinitas, Del Mar, and Chula Vista have also had evacuation orders lifted and many are returning home.
The Harris fire continues to be a threat but not nearly the way that it was. Fire is still burning in Spring Valley -- unsure about specific details, but best guess is it remains where it was. The winds died down substantially last night, and changed direction earlier in the day -- earlier than anticipated, it was supposed to be today or tomorrow -- which was a big relief across the entire region. Ocean winds started coming in again, and the situation continued gradual improvement.
So that's the good news. The bad news is that fire is spreading across Camp Pendleton (Wilcox Fire) and has completely overtaken Palomar Mountain (Poomacha fire -- the one confusing people into thinking there was fire in La Jolla because of the similarly named La Jolla Reservation up there). It also turned back across Fallbrook (this is the Rice Canyon fire). There is concern that the Pendleton fires and the Rice fire will meet in Del Dios and firefighters have been pulled out and residents evacuated. Parts of Fallbrook that had cancelled evacuation notice are now being re-evacuated. Due to all of this, interstate 5 is closed from the 76 north to the border checkpoint -- all the way to San Clemente. Further north, there is fire in San Clemente and new evacuations along the 5 in those communities -- train traffic is also stopped. Oceanside residents are concerned but are not under evacuation orders and the fire activity for now remains far north in Pendleton and the fire is not moving south. But access north has been a concern -- the 78 and 74 remain open east to interstate 15, which is completely open north and south.
In the east, Julian has also been completely evacuated, has no power, and is threatened by the east-turning edge of the Witch fire, along with Cuyamaca. Ramona remains under mandatory evacuation.
With the new evacuations and the number of homes evacuated (over 300,000), CNN estimated that the total evacuations from the fires is around 900,000. It may be impossible to ever completely determine how many people were evacuated, since they went to so many places. Only 10% actually went to evacuation centers, with the rest going to friends and family. But purely geographically the evacuation numbers have got to be huge.
In terms of damage to the city the worst seems to be over, but the new fires are spreading rapidly and represent a maintained level of danger to firefighters, which are now having to pull back from certain areas that have just become too dangerous. Hopefully the shifting winds and rising humidity will mean that they're able to stay out of danger more as well and that the fires start to burn out on their own.
Thanks all for those that extended patience with the fire updates. Glad that everyone in the area has stayed safe. From here we are mostly looking at aftermath. Spoke with my folks last night and from something like this there is inevitably damage -- I suspect new businesses will crop up purely from the cleanup that is going to be necessary for swimming pools turned into black sludge -- and businesses and schools/services are still shut down. But so far everyone I've been in direct contact with has come through okay. Still an amazing amount of damage in Rancho Bernardo, and we'll be hearing about more, but the overall sense is that management of this crisis far exceeded the 03 fires, and Katrina. Katrina comparisons were made to the situation in terms of the sheer number of people evacuated, and in that it does come close or exceed, but in terms of total number of destroyed houses and businesses, at least (people permanently losing everything), the fires are nowhere near those numbers, nor do they come close in injuries, deaths, or length of time evacuees will be spending in the centers.
The good news is that about 50,000 people were allowed to return home last night. This apparently covered areas of PQ, but I haven't seen any official notice saying that that area has been reopened. There is a phone number for residents returning to Poway only: 858-513-2800 . The trouble with determining PQ status this whole time is that in the last three days I've heard maybe one media reference to "Rancho Penasquitos" -- everyone else seems to think the area qualifies either as part of Poway or as some vague "north county" that covers everything north of the 56 from Del Mar to southern Ramona. But PQ has been out of the woods for awhile and it sounds like some are returning home. Parts of Encinitas, Del Mar, and Chula Vista have also had evacuation orders lifted and many are returning home.
The Harris fire continues to be a threat but not nearly the way that it was. Fire is still burning in Spring Valley -- unsure about specific details, but best guess is it remains where it was. The winds died down substantially last night, and changed direction earlier in the day -- earlier than anticipated, it was supposed to be today or tomorrow -- which was a big relief across the entire region. Ocean winds started coming in again, and the situation continued gradual improvement.
So that's the good news. The bad news is that fire is spreading across Camp Pendleton (Wilcox Fire) and has completely overtaken Palomar Mountain (Poomacha fire -- the one confusing people into thinking there was fire in La Jolla because of the similarly named La Jolla Reservation up there). It also turned back across Fallbrook (this is the Rice Canyon fire). There is concern that the Pendleton fires and the Rice fire will meet in Del Dios and firefighters have been pulled out and residents evacuated. Parts of Fallbrook that had cancelled evacuation notice are now being re-evacuated. Due to all of this, interstate 5 is closed from the 76 north to the border checkpoint -- all the way to San Clemente. Further north, there is fire in San Clemente and new evacuations along the 5 in those communities -- train traffic is also stopped. Oceanside residents are concerned but are not under evacuation orders and the fire activity for now remains far north in Pendleton and the fire is not moving south. But access north has been a concern -- the 78 and 74 remain open east to interstate 15, which is completely open north and south.
In the east, Julian has also been completely evacuated, has no power, and is threatened by the east-turning edge of the Witch fire, along with Cuyamaca. Ramona remains under mandatory evacuation.
With the new evacuations and the number of homes evacuated (over 300,000), CNN estimated that the total evacuations from the fires is around 900,000. It may be impossible to ever completely determine how many people were evacuated, since they went to so many places. Only 10% actually went to evacuation centers, with the rest going to friends and family. But purely geographically the evacuation numbers have got to be huge.
In terms of damage to the city the worst seems to be over, but the new fires are spreading rapidly and represent a maintained level of danger to firefighters, which are now having to pull back from certain areas that have just become too dangerous. Hopefully the shifting winds and rising humidity will mean that they're able to stay out of danger more as well and that the fires start to burn out on their own.
Thanks all for those that extended patience with the fire updates. Glad that everyone in the area has stayed safe. From here we are mostly looking at aftermath. Spoke with my folks last night and from something like this there is inevitably damage -- I suspect new businesses will crop up purely from the cleanup that is going to be necessary for swimming pools turned into black sludge -- and businesses and schools/services are still shut down. But so far everyone I've been in direct contact with has come through okay. Still an amazing amount of damage in Rancho Bernardo, and we'll be hearing about more, but the overall sense is that management of this crisis far exceeded the 03 fires, and Katrina. Katrina comparisons were made to the situation in terms of the sheer number of people evacuated, and in that it does come close or exceed, but in terms of total number of destroyed houses and businesses, at least (people permanently losing everything), the fires are nowhere near those numbers, nor do they come close in injuries, deaths, or length of time evacuees will be spending in the centers.