Blaze Wipes Out a Neighborhood of Friends and Memories : ‘The Only Thing We Have Left Is What We’ve Got On’

Glenn and Merle Murphy were watching their grandson play baseball in a nearby park Sunday afternoon when word came over a fellow spectator’s radio that brush fires had swept up a finger canyon to ignite houses on Panama Place--the quiet Normal Heights cul de sac where they had lived for more than 40 years.

By the time the couple crossed police and fire barricades to reach the short street that led to their house on the canyon’s edge, black smoke had engulfed the lane, obscuring the destroyed homes--one of them their own.

The Murphys, retired cafe owners, had lived in the home with “a beautiful view” for more than 40 years. Now they didn’t know what they were going to do.

“So many things are gone, the only thing we’ve got left is what we’ve got on,” Merle Murphy said.

For many Normal Heights residents, it was only a matter of time before they discovered a similar truth: That the quiet, handsome neighborhood where most of them had lived for decades had been destroyed.

The reddish brown plume of smoke billowing above Interstate 805 could be seen throughout the county, a signal that all was not normal in Normal Heights.

The neighborhood, which overlooks Mission Valley, is a close-knit community of families and elderly people, many of whom have known each other for more than 20 years. Throughout the day, neighbors worked to save each other’s homes. Those who were home along North Mountain View Drive, which sits above the canyon, watered down with garden hoses the houses of people that were absent. For some, it was too late.

Marie VanDyke and her brother David Swearga, both in their 80s, share a house on Panama Place, along the canyon rim. They were eating lunch at about 12:15 when they saw the canyon ablaze and thick smoke billowing into the air.

“We were so happy, just having a nice lunch, thanking the Lord,” Swearga said. Police evacuated them before they had a chance to gather any belongings, he said. “We think our house is gone, all our clothes, our beautiful furniture, our jewelry.”

“The neighborhood went so fast. It seemed like everything was on fire. They took us out and sparks were flying about,” VanDyke said.

Amy Vonjenef fled in her car with her photo albums and fur coat when police came rushing down the drive telling residents to leave at about 1 p.m. But soon after, she made her way back to her house, sneaking through backyards where neighbors helped her climb fences.

“I used to be afraid of climbing a ladder, but I was up and down hosing the roof,” Vonjenef said.

Down the street four elderly women milled in front of their house. The flames that destroyed houses across the street had ignited a palm tree on their lot and sent blazing fronds onto their driveway, smashing their car’s rear window and charring the white paint.

But the four sisters--Clara, Ann and Mary Romano and Florence Ballantine--wouldn’t leave the property where they had lived for 35 years.

Clara Romano, who fled with the deed to the house earlier in the day, returned with her sisters to find their home spared and young men hosing the roof.

Across the street, firefighters were hosing down hot spots where only archways and chimneys marked the site of three houses now gone.

Nearby, using an ax and a shovel, David Brister tore a hole in the roof of his mother’s house, in the 3100 block of North Mountain View Drive, to douse the fire smoldering in the attic.

“It happened so fast,” Brister said. “The chunks of ambers were flying over here from across the street . . . I couldn’t see 30 feet in front of me.”

Doris Pulvers, whose 35th Street home abuts the canyon, told a similar story. “I could see the smoke as I was rushing home from work,” she said, “and as I got closer, I could see just how close the flames were.” Her garage was destroyed, but firefighters saved her house as she looked on.

“I already cried and I’ll cry more later,” she said.

Times staff writer Lorena Oropeza contributed to this story.