100 buildings lost in Running Springs

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More than 100 structures were lost in Running Springs as of this morning and 25 in Green Valley Lake, according to U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Veronica Magnuson. But she said it was difficult to keep track with all the spot fires.

With more than 15,000 people under mandatory evacuation between the Slide and Grass Valley fires, San Bernardino County sheriff’s officials were making another round of door-to-door pleas for residents to leave.

“I have a message for them: Please leave,” Magnuson said. “You’re interfering. You’re risking our lives.”

North of Highway 18 in Running Springs on Valley Ridge Drive, firefighters returned to some of the homes they had tried to save the night before.

Valley Ridge was one of the streets where the fire had torn through an entire block in rapid succession, said Lt. Chuck Peraza of the Imperial Valley Strike Team from the city of Brawley. A small note of consolation was that firefighters had kept the fire from devouring houses farther up the ridge, where small pockets of flames still danced dangerously close to wooden porches covered with cobwebs and other Halloween decorations.

Just before noon Peraza and his team had come back after an hour of sleep to try to control the hot spots.

Blackened tree branches were still alight along the road amid a carpet of pine needles from the tall trees that shelter the homes.

Many of the houses on Valley Ridge Drive between Highway 18 and Circle View Drive were reduced to chimneys surrounded by smoldering piles of bricks and insulation.

Firefighter Richard Valenzuela of the Brawley Fire Department and a colleague stood in front of a lone green house with red wooden stairs at 31442 Valley Ridge, dousing smoldering lawn chairs and tree stumps. He and his partner had taken a stand on either side of the home Monday night to protect it from the flaming houses on either side and across the street that burned to the ground.

“This is the house we saved,” Valenzuela said with pride. “We were out here all night.”

A San Bernardino County sheriff’s official who was scouring Running Springs for stubborn residents, but did not want to give his name, said 98% of residents appeared to have complied with evacuation orders.

“They’re not dumb,” he said.

-- Maeve Reston