Cowles Mountain Blaze Comes Within 20 Yards of Homes

Winds whipped an arson-caused brush fire to within 20 yards of a row of San Carlos homes and scorched 400 acres Thursday, but firefighters contained the five-alarm blaze before it caused serious damage or injury.

The fire stripped Cowles Mountain of thick chaparral brush and may have damaged Cox Cable repeaters and transmitters on the peak. There were widespread reports of Cox Cable TV failures and KCST (Channel 39) lost transmission through a mountaintop antenna. A Cox employee declined comment on the incident.

About 100 firefighters from seven jurisdictions fought the fire for more than five hours with the aid of 24 engines, while two reconnaissance planes and two state Department of Forestry air tankers dropped at least 12 loads of red fire retardant on the flaming brush.

Ninety state forestry ground crews cleared brush with chain saws, and San Carlos residents doused their homes and yards with garden hoses and buckets of water from their swimming pools.

The fire began at 1:05 p.m., north of Golfcrest Drive and Navajo Road, and senior firefighters said it was deliberately set.

Fueled by dry brush and powerful gusts of wind, the fire surged east toward the 1,591-foot peak and down toward Cowles Mountain Boulevard.

Capt. Terrance Milligan of the San Diego Fire Department said residents were never in serious danger because, after it neared the peak, the fire burned relatively slowly downhill--and because the houses were protected by tile roofs, sprinklers and roads.

But many residents along quiet Wing Span Drive rushed home from work through heavy traffic or fled, hoping the blaze was not a sequel to the Normal Heights canyon fire of June, 1985, that consumed 64 homes and damaged 20 others.

The gray and brown smoke was clearly visible for miles in the clear afternoon sky, showering ashes onto homes and heating the air.

Janet Ogilvie noticed the fire from a nearby McDonald’s restaurant.

“All of a sudden we saw smoke coming off the hill,” she said. “We were headed for the beach for the day and we decided to come back and check it out.” She took her two children and cat from her house on Wing Span and drove them to the home of a relative.

“There’s always a real strong breeze up here, and that’s one thing that’s really working against the firefighters,” Ogilvie said. “It’s one of the nicest things about this place when there isn’t a fire.”

She said her family had considered the danger of fire when they bought the home, but were counting on quick firefighter response and fireproof roofs to prevent disaster.

“This is the worst possible situation, and exactly what we thought would happen happened,” she said.

“Luckily we didn’t build a house on that side of the road,” she said pointing to flaming bushes a few dozen yards from her doorstep on the west side of Wing Span.

Teen-agers skateboarded from the area with T-shirts over their mouths, and several joggers continued their normal routes along Cowles Mountain Boulevard during the fire.

Darryl Polk, another Wing Span homeowner, said he has lived near the mountain for only five months and was called home from a nearby golf course.

“It looked like a mushroom cloud and the landscapers said they couldn’t see anything, there was so much smoke,” Polk said. “If the wind hadn’t shifted, it would have been in my backyard.”

Wing Span resident Gayle Marshall said she has admired and hiked Cowles Mountain for 25 years.

“Every morning it’s so wonderful with all the quail, jack rabbits and road runners,” she said. “It just makes you sick to think they have gone somewhere else or have been destroyed.”

But she said the fire will serve to pull the young neighborhood together, perhaps at a party later this month.

“I’ve been known to turn the world’s worst disasters into parties,” she said.