Fast-moving fire closes in on High Valley

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Poway:

Looking north from Twin Peaks Road toward the Culebra Hills development in Poway, a very big, fast-moving fire is coming south with high flames visible against the horizon. There is no electricity, but the whole area is illuminated with an orange light.

The area where the fire is burning, a horse-property subdivision of Poway called High Valley, is sparsely populated.

People here say a number of houses have burned in Poway today, but no one knows how many.

This area is under an evacuation order, but there are so few police officers to spread around, there seems to be no one to enforce it. So a lot of people are lingering, including Mark McDermott, 49, a vice president at a defense electronics firm.

McDermott had been evacuating his horses in the morning from Culebra Hills, when another fire line came down the creek from the east, then fizzled out. That fire followed the path of the Cedar Fire, but the one now coming from the north has a new path. No fire engines can be seen. ‘This is way different,’ he said.

He and his wife were going to have dinner, then flee: ‘You have to get out if you want to sleep,’ he said.

-- Jill Leovy