North San Diego County fire could race to ocean

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San Diego Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief John Tomson, 57, on duty in Rancho Bernardo in northern San Diego County, said that if the winds don’t die down, the fire could easily reach the coast.

“It’s the Cedar fire all over again,” said Tomson, a 30-year firefighter. “We’re not going to stop it. I don’t have any idea even where it is anymore. I’m not sure anybody knows where it is anymore.”

Tomson began at 1 a.m. with a crew of 20 in the Bandy Canyon area northeast of Poway. Over the next 12 hours, the crew grew to 80 as it chased the fire westward nearly 20 miles along Highland Valley Drive to Rancho Bernardo. Along the way, the firefighters tried to keep the flames from blowing through several residential areas, to no avail.

Shortly before noon today, they received a call that two apartments were ablaze at the La Terraza Apartment Villas in Rancho Bernardo.

“Now we’ve lost 10 buildings,” Tomson said at 12:30 p.m. A new column of thick smoke erupted over another building. “Here it comes again,” he said.

Behind Tomson, a group of firefighters trained their hoses on the new flames, as about a dozen others, their faces covered in black soot, slept on the curb. Most had been chasing the flames for 29 hours. Most firefighters say there are not enough of them in San Diego County to fight the blaze.

The Rancho Bernardo neighborhood is upper-middle-class and family-friendly, with homes of $500,000 and up. The scene is chaotic, with spot fires breaking out in many backyards and no central wall of flames.

The air is thick with smoke and embers and charred palm trees stand along the streets. Kids’ bikes with training wheels are abandoned in front of houses. One house untouched by the flames is decorated for Halloween, with ghosts made of napkins hanging from the eaves over the front door and from the hedge, spiderwebs draped on the bushes and orange marigolds blooming in pots.

-- Scott Gold