Slow Going : Thousands of Drivers Stranded on Both Sides of Fire

A tower of smoke rose hundreds of feet above the blackened hills near Camp Pendleton on Wednesday, blotting the sun into a tiny orange dot, reducing freeway visibility to almost zero, and sprinkling deserted Interstate 5 with an eerie layer of white soot.

“It looks like a volcano,” California Highway Patrol Officer Paul Golonski said as he drove the smoldering moonscape between San Clemente and Oceanside on Wednesday afternoon, trying to decide whether it would be safe to let motorists through. “A wind shift and we’re going to be out of business again,” Golonski said.

Thousands of commuters stranded on both sides of the 7,000-acre brush fire were having a similar nightmare.

“I’ve been stuck for almost three hours,” said Evelyn Hernandez, 25, who left her San Clemente home for a six-mile trip to San Juan Capistrano--and had been hoping to get home by dark.

Hernandez spent an hour and a half traveling two miles south on Interstate 5 from Ortega Highway to San Juan Creek Road. Then her car overheated, and she joined about a dozen other motorists going nowhere on the shoulder of the freeway.

Together, they eyed a six-mile stretch of taillights and waited for repair trucks they knew weren’t likely to be able to reach them through the traffic jam.

“I was supposed to pick up my little boy at school at 11:30,” Hernandez moaned. She finally reached her husband through a highway call box.

“It’s worse than being in Tijuana trying to cross the border,” she said.

In addition to miles of cars parked on Interstate 5, backed-up traffic spilled over onto surface streets, creating a massive traffic jam from San Juan Capistrano to San Clemente.

“I couldn’t even get out of my driveway” onto bumper-to-bumper Avenida del Presidente in San Clemente, complained Kelly Morris, a 25-year-old Saddleback College student.

A section of Coast Highway near the intersection of Interstate 5 was also closed for several hours Wednesday morning, resulting in delays of half an hour or more for trips between San Juan Capistrano and Dana Point.

The San Juan Capistrano CHP office was flooded with more than 1,500 calls. Three officers manning the phones advised frustrated motorists to avoid the area altogether. Those desperate to get to San Diego were told to take the Riverside Freeway to Interstate 15, but even that trip was taking up to three hours, said CHP Sgt. Bill Elliott.

Among the freeway-fatigued refugees were an exhausted couple from Macon, Ga. Hugh and Gene Hanson had braved a snowstorm in the Grand Canyon and a dust storm outside of Las Vegas, only to find themselves in a Southern California firestorm.

“We turned off Interstate 15 to come by the beach, and danged if we didn’t get caught in this mess,” Hugh Hanson said. “It’s been an adventure, all right.”

At the Amtrak station in San Juan Capistrano, several people coming from Los Angeles found themselves stranded until a train for San Diego was finally permitted to depart shortly after noon.

“I’m just trying to get home,” said Pat Nickols of Rancho Santa Fe, who had been visiting friends in Fullerton.

Greyhound buses from San Diego to Los Angeles were also delayed.

“Please, please, let this day end,” said Bob Wagnon, terminal operations manager in San Diego.

At 2 p.m., the CHP began escorting groups of about 300 motorists through the 20-mile stretch of I-5 from San Clemente to Oceanside. Officers kept motorists from going faster than 35 m.p.h., fearful that sudden gusts of wind would once again obliterate the highway or that gawking motorists who slammed on their brakes could cause a chain collision.

Bright lines of fire still marched up hilltops, and giant clouds of black, white, gray and amber smoke poured out of canyons.

As the smoke began to clear, a few brave bicyclists pedaled south along the shore to the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

Many motorists abandoned the highways altogether, heading for the beach or the soothing shelter of a restaurant.

“I came here to have some coffee and regain my sanity,” said Tracy Rumford, who left his home in Los Angeles at 7 a.m., pulled off the freeway in despair nearly three hours later, and fled to a San Juan Capistrano coffee shop to nurse his frayed nerves.

“I told myself I would stick it out for a half hour,” Rumford said. “I think I went three-fourths of a mile.”

Times staff writer John M. Glionna and correspondents Wendy Paulson and Len Hall contributed to this report.

Brush Fire Stalls Motorists Interstate 5 southbound was closed at Camino Las Ramblas, causing a 6-mile backup. Fire reported to have started in the northwest section of the camp, half a mile east of I-5. Nuclear plant alert was triggered. A 20-mile stretch of freeway from southern San Clemente to Oceanside was closed for 12 hours. Passenger train service was intermittently halted until midday.