Witch Fire erupts around Lake Poway
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Poway:
About 4 p.m., just as firefighters were hoping the wind would begin to die down for the evening, a branch of the Witch Fire erupted, barreling through the east side of Poway, a city that is home to large gated communities and subdivisions of million-dollar houses.
The fire headed south, burning on two fronts: the north side of Lake Poway, and a new finger of the city that wraps around the south side of the lake, over hills with large and expensive houses in an area called High Valley. Residents stood along Espola Road with T-shirts wrapped around their faces and squinting through binoculars trying to point out the houses that were burning.
‘It’s terrifying,’ said Donna Cuddy, 45, who was evacuating with her husband, son and two dogs, and hoped to find a hotel near downtown San Diego.
Harold Bridges, a park maintenance worker from Poway, had been drafted to block off intersections to keep people from getting into the High Valley area. ‘This just happened; it’s bad up there.’
-- Scott Gold
