Reporter’s Notebook : Awesome Fire Hardly Fazed Cool Campers

Half a dozen residents of Ortega Oaks campground drank beer and joked Wednesday afternoon while watching in the distance as a major brush fire swept through Cleveland National Forest.

The group gathered in the parking lot of a next-door landmark called the Candy Store, a mom-and-pop food market, joking and laughing--even as a mushroom cloud of brown smoke in the distance got bigger and winds began shifting and picking up speed.

Firefighters were staked out around the Candy Store and the nearby campground, ready to battle flames that might threaten the buildings.

Still, the campers did not seem worried that the fire, which had been raging since the previous afternoon and at one point had come within a quarter-mile of their trailers, could destroy their possessions.

“I want a new trailer anyway,” joked Mike Davidson, 40. “I’ve paid enough in insurance.”

His wife, Diane, was equally at ease about the blaze. “At least there won’t be any more snakes around here. They’ll be charred to a crisp.”

12-Foot Flames Jumping Highway

For myself, the Ortega fire was like nothing I had ever seen. Although I had seen grass fires and small brush fires in my hometown of Minneapolis, I had no idea how unpredictable flames can be in such steep, brush-covered terrain.

I had never seen the towering flames, blackened skies and funnel-like winds of a major brush fire. Nor had I seen how winds can suddenly change direction and gather force that fuels a fire.

Just minutes before, I had tried to get to El Cariso, a small village about four miles northeast of the Candy Store, which is just across the Orange County line in Riverside County. About half a mile up the road, I drove around a bend and spotted 12-foot flames jumping Ortega Highway and heading in my direction. I turned back.

I sped to the Candy Store. There, the owners had lost telephone communication and had given the last of their water to firefighters.

Earlier in the day, James Foster, 51, owner of the campground and the store, had been confident that his property would be spared. By afternoon, as the fire once again headed his way, he looked a little uneasy.

He pointed southeast to a hill where flames licked at a TV antenna that marked his property line. He took another look, grabbed a six-pack of beer from his store and retreated to his home nearby.

Campers Andy Mullin, 26, and Melissa Harris, 20, both of North Carolina, had stayed the night at the Ortega Oaks. For them, staying put at the campground and nearby Candy Store was the safest thing to do.

“I’ve just been standing around, watching the fire burn,” Mullin said.

Harris, who is expecting a baby in late July, was also at ease. “The firefighters told us that we should stay,” she said, as another cloud of smoke rose about four miles southwest on Ortega Highway, making travel anywhere questionable.

“It’s safer here than if we were to leave,” she said. “We have the firefighters around.”

About 30 minutes later, as flames threatened to crest the nearby hill, an Orange County firefighter persuaded me to go with him to El Cariso. It was his day off, and he was missing all the action, he grumbled.

‘These Are the Best’

“For firefighters, they mainly spend their time battling structural fires,” he said. “Those only last a few hours. These last a few days. These are the best you can have.”

So I drove with him back up the winding, two-lane highway. “You really shouldn’t worry,” he reassured me. “We’ll be protected in a car.”

Two miles up the road, in an area where earlier that morning air tankers had dropped water and fire retardant chemicals on a small island of bushes and grassland, even the boulders were charred.

At El Cariso, the sky was dark from the black smoke. In the smoky clouds, I could see the yellow reflection of the fire. The main front of the blaze was moving northeast to a slope that dropped down to the Lake Elsinore area. We decided to head for that cloud of smoke.

We made it to the Lookout Restaurant, the first building on the descent down Ortega Highway toward Lake Elsinore. The restaurant, which was closed, was surrounded by firefighters bracing themselves. The smoke cloud, which by now was swirling like a tornado, made the late afternoon skies over Lake Elsinore look as if night had fallen.

While filing a report at a pay telephone outside the restaurant, I noticed that not only had parts of the smoke cloud turned yellow and red with flames, but a two-story wave of fire was creeping down the slope toward us. It was time to leave.

The highway to Lake Elsinore had become impassable, so we headed back to Ortega Oaks campground. After seeing just how quickly the eastern edge of the fire had moved, I wondered whether the Candy Store was still there.

It was. So were the half-dozen people, sipping their beers and watching the action.