This was hardly a fair fight

At 6:30 in the morning Tuesday, Debora Lutz of the U.S. Forest Service got the first sign she was in for a hellacious day in the air war against the Witch.

The Witch fire in northern San Diego County had already devoured more than 150,000 acres, and was eating its way down the San Dieguito River Valley, heading straight for the blue-chip seaside real estate of Del Mar and Rancho Santa Fe.

And now -- good morning, Battalion Chief Lutz -- the city of Ramona's main water pump had died, courtesy of a burning power transmission line.

That could mean no water to fill the bellies of Lutz's small, ad hoc fleet of air tankers based at Ramona Airport. No water to dilute the blood-red fire retardant to the proper color and consistency of strawberry milk.

The four tankers, along with three spotter planes, comprised the entire fixed-wing air force deployed against not only the monstrous Witch fire, but also the Harris fire blazing to the southeast of San Diego, and the Rice fire , about 60 miles north. Lutz had been begging her superiors for more planes, dreaming especially of a DC-10 that could carry about 12,000 gallons of liquid, ten times the load of one of her tankers.

It was in operation elsewhere, she was told.

"We've told them to give us everything they have," she said. "None are available."

In the hushed second-story control room, Lutz, who is 50 and wears her blond hair in a long ponytail, held soft-spoken sway, banishing loud talkers so she and her CalFire colleague Shari Lee could attend to the constant crackle of radio traffic from the planes.

A sign on a nearby wall read, "Don't let these innocent smiles fool you. They are cruel, vicious women."

Through two large windows they looked out on a broad expanse of ranch homes, horse stalls and palm trees encircled by distant mountains, many of them ablaze.

On the pavement outside, great spills of undiluted fire retardant stained the ground red. Every few minutes, planes landed and refilled, returning from short flights. The smell of smoke blended with that of aircraft fuel. The air was filled with the shouts of refueling and refilling crews straining to be heard above the din of propellers and engines.

With the main city water pump disabled, crews brought on line an electric pump of their own to keep the water flowing. Airport power interruptions kept stalling the pump throughout the morning, and workers had to switch to a gasoline-powered generator to keep it running.

Meanwhile, water pressure throughout Ramona began to drop. The pressure drop, which started at higher elevations, was working its way down to the basin and the airport.

The previous night, a small blaze dubbed the Poomacha fire had broken out near Mount Palomar, and by 8 a.m. had grown to consume 1,000 acres. Just before 12:30 p.m., Pat Kershen, of the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and overall commander for the Witch fire, received an e-mail informing him that Poomacha had become a 22,000-acre conflagration and was working its way up Mount Palomar itself.

"We're approaching biblical proportions," said Kershen. "I'm waiting for Pestilence next, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

Poomacha meant an additional theater of operations for the strapped Ramona fleet.

A little after noon, Battalion Chief Ray Chaney, a spotter in one of the planes, came into the control room to grab a cheeseburger and take a half-hour break. "The whole county is on fire," he announced.

Chaney's crew had been busy dousing Mount Woodson, which became a sudden priority. A fire was racing up the mountain toward major communications towers for the San Diego County Sheriff, the California Highway Patrol, the FBI, and numerous other law enforcement and emergency agencies.

That left no planes immediately available for Mount Palomar.