Ghostly car, basketball hoop marks Fredalba destruction

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Fredalba:

The fire decimated this San Bernardino community, which by late afternoon was a eerie vision of white ash and burning stumps on a carpet of blackened pine needles. Severed power lines dangled along Fredalba Road and there was virtually nothing left of the homes surrounding Fredalba’s historical marker -- noting that the town was the home of the Brookings Lumber Company between 1898 and 1911.

A charred sports car with with flames coming out of the place the headlights once were, a bent and twisted basketball hoop, an ghostly metal table with four chairs still in place around it and a charcoal grill next to what might have once been a patio completed the scene.

There simply were not enough fire trucks to chase down the fire that swept from Running Springs into the steep, winding roads of Fredalba Tuesday morning, said Brian Savage, a Division Supervisor with Culver City Fire who was among the first to begin battling back the flames.

By the time he arrived between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., the flames had already raced through several homes and there were virtually no trucks available to save the rest, he said. Most of the eight engines that were still trying to put out spot fires in the Fredabla-Smiley Ranch communities at 4 p.m. did not arrive until after 1 p.m., Savage said.

The clutter left by homeowners in their wooded yards slowed efforts, Savage said.

“You tell people to do clearance and they think it’s OK to leave the wood piles and the sheds,” Savage said. “They just don’t get it. We can’t be at every house. … It’s frustrating.”

-- Maeve Reston