No way back to find the cat

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Police kept residents from returning as they evacuated neighborhoods from fires raging sporadically in communities along Rancho Bernardo Road and Espola Road in Rancho Bernardo. Officers raced up to a home near Rancho Bernardo Road to make sure that Roman Yumatov, 27, was planning to evacuate. He told them he was but later confided that he wasn’t sure. He said, ‘If this gets serious, I can get out.’

In Rancho Bernardo, Charles Starr, 46, said he woke up at 5:30 this morning and saw flames shooting from the hedges outside his bedroom window. San Diego County officials had attempted to warn him of the fire in a ‘reverse 911’ call. But Starr has a mechanism on his phone to block spam calls, and it apparently blocked the 911 call as well. He evacuated on his own and was attempting to return to his home to retrieve possessions, including an antique gun collection. ‘All I have is the clothes I’m wearing,’ he said.

At the same checkpoint were Tim Richardson, 48, and his son Austin Richardson, 16. They had evacuated earlier, taking Tim’s wife and the family dog to a friend’s house on the coast. They tried to return home after watching the house across the street from theirs burn down on the news. They had not been able to find the cat before they had to make a run for it.

‘We need to get our cat,’ Tim Richardson told a police officer.

‘You can’t get in there,’ the officer replied.

‘Is there any time we can get in there?’ Richardson asked.

‘That’s going to depend on the fire, not me,’ the officer said.

At least 10 apartment buildings and seven homes are reported to have burned in this part of Rancho Bernardo -- west of I-15 and south of Lake Hodges.

-- Scott Gold