Burned out in ‘93, he’s staying to save his home this time around

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Lake Arrowhead:

Standing on a balcony across from Cedar Glen Canyon near Lake Arrowhead, where hundreds of home were burned in 2003, neighbors Shane McLelland and Jack Fuller surveyed a line of fire less than a mile away that headed in their direction.

Fuller lost his house in the earlier fire, but built a two-story, wood-framed hillside home to replace it.

With a panoramic view the neighbors can monitor the fires to the east and homes burning a mile away. To the west there are multi-million dollar homes in every nook and cranny of the mountains standing untouched.

McLelland and Fuller were among 50 homeowners who have chosen to stay to protect their homes, most of them built only in the last 4 years. McLelland lives a few miles away in the Grass Valley community of Lake Arrowhead, where many homes were lost last night and today. But, on Tuesday, he was laying out hoses and clearing brush from around the home of a long time friend in Cedar Glen.

McLelland and many other neighbors had repeatedly returned throughout the day to Fuller’s balcony to keep tabs on the fires they believed would return to the canyon later tonight. Peering through binoculars, Fuller, a concrete construction worker, and McLelland, a custom car builder, shook their heads at the sight of homes going up in smoke on the western ridgeline of Green Valley Lake about a mile away from the fires.

Having lost his water pressure entirely earlier Tuesday, Fuller hired a local construction crew to bring a water tanker to his property and thoroughly hose down the house. “We’re pretty sure what’s going to happen next,” McLelland said. “The fire is going to come through here, possibly take away all these new homes and then head into Lake Arrowhead. So, we’ve got our hoses laid out and ready. The water tanks up the street are full.”

One of his neighbors installed a water pump near a creek just behind his house to fight the fire with the creek water.

“We just want to get this over with. Sitting around and waiting is nerve-racking. But we’re not going to let our homes burn again if we can help it.”

-- Louis Sahagun