Leaflets to Warn Aliens That Campfires Can Start Infernos

As dusks draws near, men gather around small campfires to prepare their evening meal. Surrounded by red hills and green crops, they scramble eggs in a big pot and toss tortillas on a piece of tin that serves as a grill.

With the dust of a day’s work resting on their dark, brown skin, the migrant farm workers, all in the county illegally, place dried brush and small sticks to fuel the flames beneath a twisted grate. Occasionally, the fire whips high around the pot, within inches of dried undergrowth and the litter of paper that edges the camp.

Across the valley in Gopher Canyon, ash covers 2,000 acres.

June’s Gopher Canyon fire blazed through the chaparral-covered hills of Vista, destroying tree groves, electrical lines and burning one home, Fire Chief Harry Kaylor said. A cook fire used by illegal aliens “definitely” started the worst brush fire the Vista Fire Department has ever battled, he said.

To prevent another inferno, the fire department has embarked on a unique plan to distribute to illegal aliens flyers that provide campfire-safety instructions in Spanish.

“It’s very ticklish,” Kaylor said. “It’s illegal to have campfires, but we’ve gone in and written citations and . . . it’s like nailing Jello to the wall. It doesn’t do any good because a guy has to have a fire to cook.”

The flyers, which will be printed within a month, will state that campfires are illegal, “but if you have to have a campfire this is how to build one properly,” Kaylor said. “We have to be kind of tongue-in-cheek.”

The flyers will tell illegal aliens to clear away brush for at least three feet around a campfire and to make sure that they completely extinguish any fire.

About 50 aliens cook on several fires at one camp on the Tres Amigos Ranch, just east of Gopher Canyon. The camp includes an earthen volleyball court, a discarded sofa and small, metal tables laden with canned food.

The migrant workers said the campfires are safe because they always pour water over them when they are through cooking. If a small brush fire starts, despite their care, they throw dirt over the flames.

If a major brush fire begins, all they can do is run and leave the firefighting to the fire department, the workers said.

“If big flames are jumping around, we can’t do anything. The sheriff comes and la migra (immigration officers) . . . so we just run over the hills,” said 24-year-old Pedro Cortes.

Antonio de los Santos, 22, said he would read the flyer. He then pointed to some brush that lay six inches away from where some chicken was boiling. “See, over there. Those dry weeds are too close and I should cut them down.”

Kaylor agreed the illegal aliens must know something about campfire safety, because hundreds of aliens are in Vista, yet very few of their campfires have resulted in major brush fires. In 1984, three major fires occurred in the Gopher Canyon area, and in 1983 there were four. So far this year, the area has seen only one large brush fire.

The aliens trust the fire department to stop any fire, Kaylor said. He recalled how during the Gopher Canyon fire, illegal aliens began cooking just a hilltop away from where firefighters were trying to stop the blaze.

De los Santos said he remembers an instance when two men started a brush fire by good-naturedly wrestling too close to a flame. The fire sent sparks shooting into the brush, and although the pair tried to douse the fire with water, it spread too fast.

“The firefighters came then, and they put out the fire. But I don’t think they did too good of a job, because the next morning another fire started in the same area,” he said.

High temperatures, low humidity and high winds will turn a glowing ember, which might otherwise die out, into a major fire, Kaylor said.

“We have many, many more fires started by citizens in closets, by kids playing with matches, than we have fires started by illegal aliens. It’s just that they live in a high-hazard brush area,” he said.

Richard Bosted, president of the California Assn. of Fire Chiefs, said he knows of no other program anywhere in the state that teaches fire safety to illegal migrants.

The alien population in Vista may be too transient for a message about fire prevention to reach them, Bosted said. He also wondered if the aliens would be interested in learning “how to break the law properly,” by reading about campfire instructions.

Kalyor, who feels the department “might as well give it a try,” said printing 1,000 flyers will only cost about $100.

“I don’t expect anything to be done about the illegal alien problem for a long time,” Kaylor said. “About all we can do is to try and educate people about the danger of fires and safety precautions.”

Vista residents who live close to the campsites say they think the flyers are a good idea. About 25 people have called the fire department concerned about the fire threat the campfires present to their homes, Kaylor said.

“I know every time I leave my house, I’m just praying that it is still there when I get back,” one resident said.

Diane McDaniel, who lives on Fairview Drive, where she can see the campfires from her windows, said she reported the Gopher Canyon fire. “When the fire started, they (the illegal aliens) were trying to beat it and put it out. Then they just ran up the hill. They had to get away from it or be engulfed in flames.

“I think it’s (the flyer) great because it addresses the problem. They could easily get trapped in the canyons because the wind blows in so many directions.”

Andrea Stamm, who lives in the area on Silver Oak Lane, also thinks it’s a good idea. “But I wonder if they can read,” Stamm said. “Some of those kids are so young, 10 or 12 years old.”

Kaylor said he wants to make the language on the flyers simple. The men who can read can share the information on the flyers with those who cannot.

Growers and distributors said they could distribute the flyers to the illegal aliens, perhaps by attaching them to their payroll checks. “If they would give us some flyers we could hand them out,” said Tom Matsumoto, who works at Vista Sales. “I don’t think it would do any harm.”

Playing cards or listening to portable radios as they wait to eat dinner, the illegal aliens said they believe the campfires are safe because the farm workers are cautious when they use them.

“In Mexico, fires just burn until they go out. They’re used to it,” Kaylor said. “We’re trying to move that point of view more toward our own, to make them realize the danger of a fire.”

The Gopher Canyon fire swept through the camps of many illegal aliens. Burned-out pits are all that remain of the migrants’ makeshift housing in the canyon. “These people probably lost more in the fire than anyone else did, because they lost everything they had, which was so little,” Kaylor said.

“We’re deathly afraid next time someone might be sleeping in.”