Residents Keeping Wary Watch on Forest Fire

As darkness fell Tuesday evening over the Cleveland National Forest, the glow of a fast-burning fire began to emerge from the billowing smoke enveloping much of the rugged mountains along the Ortega Highway.

In this backwoods, high-country corner of Orange County hugging the Riverside County border, firefighters were struggling to get control of the blaze as nearby residents kept a wary eye on the fire’s path.

Forest fires are not unusual in the area, but nonetheless residents say they know that when the thick brush and trees are very dry, a fire could oust them from their homes with little notice.

At a Forest Service fire station on Ortega Highway just outside the western border of the national forest, Christine Carrington walked up from her home in nearby Sievers Canyon about 8:30 p.m. to check on the progress of the fire, which was another 10 miles uphill from there.

Concerned but not alarmed, Carrington said, “We go through this every summer.”

Even though the fire was 10 miles away, she had already packed up family documents and photo albums, just in case, and was ready to evacuate along with two cats and a dog. “I hope someone wakes us during the night if we need to leave.”

Also at the fire station was Terry Anderson, who said he and his wife had come to the area recently from Minnesota and have been living temporarily in a trailer park near the fire.

Anderson said he was headed home when he stopped at the fire station to find out what was happening. “All of a sudden, wham, the road was blocked,” he said. “I wasn’t ready for this. You would think that this doesn’t happen in California--that there are no trees.”

Worried about his wife and his $14,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle, both at home, Anderson said he learned that he couldn’t get through to his trailer park off Ortega Highway and that residents had been evacuated.

He wondered where he will link up with his wife. “I don’t know where she’s at,” he said.

Some motorists heading east along the busy Ortega Highway were turned back by California Highway Patrol officers. The officers stopped motorists about three miles east of Interstate 5, where the highway narrows to two lanes and snakes its way slowly up into the mountains before it drops again to Lake Elsinore.

“I don’t know what to do,” said motorist Charles Worthington, who was planning to visit friends in the San Juan Springs area near the fire.

“I guess the camping trip is cut short,” he said.

Forest Service firefighters at the camp said the fire began along Ortega about 4 p.m. near a store called the Candy Store, and quickly spread to both sides of the highway.

By 8:45 p.m, CHP Officer D. Hertsch said, about 40 homes in the area had been evacuated and the fire was heading east, away from most homes in the area. He said the fire started about 100 yards into Riverside County, and that an arson team was investigating.

Meanwhile, Forest Service Fire Capt. Bob DeBaun said preparations were being made to fight the fire through the night, and that firefighters were hoping that cooler coastal air might aid their efforts. “We try to use weather to our advantage,” DeBaun said.

Norm Machado, a spokesman for the Forest Service, said his agency was preparing to take over at midnight the coordination of firefighting efforts by hundreds of volunteers and professionals from nearby jurisdictions. “We’ll be here all night,” he said.

MAIN STORY:

Part I, Page 1