A Dozen Victims of October Blazes

The wildfires that swept across Southern California in October killed 24 people. Some died on mountain canyon roads as they tried to outrun the flames. Others died miles from the fires, suffering heart attacks that authorities said were related to the blazes. Below are the stories of 12 victims. Obituaries of the other 12 who died in the first hours of the Cedar fire in San Diego County can be found on A31.

Cedar Fire

San Diego County

Christy Seiler Davis, 42; Nature Lover Was Taking Business Classes

Christy Seiler Davis, 42, baked fruit cobblers, grew tomatoes, dried flowers for home decorating and played bingo. She picked out her wedding ring at a pawnshop.

“She didn’t care much for technology,” said her husband, Bruce Davis. “It was like she, like me, was born 100 years too late.”

The Cedar fire found the woman on Oct. 26 in the living room of her home near Alpine. The couple had lived on the top floor of a duplex. “You could hear the owls, see the Milky Way, hear wind in the trees,” said her mother, Marcia Seiler-Christy. “She loved all that.”

She recalled Davis, the youngest of her four children, as an independent, down-to-earth girl who liked mystery novels, garage sales, camping and hiking. In the summer before her senior year of high school, Davis helped maintain trails around Lake Tahoe, her mother said.

Last semester, Davis started business classes at Grossmont College in El Cajon, with an eye to changing the direction of her life, Seiler-Christy said. Davis had just started a sales job with a San Diego rigging company.

Bruce Davis was not at home when the fire struck. He had called to warn his wife, but she told him she wasn’t worried and thought she could wait before evacuating. “I don’t know why she didn’t make it out of there,” he said.

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Steven Rucker, 38; Firefighter Died Trying to Save a House

Steven Rucker, 38, had dreamed of being a firefighter since he was a boy. He hung out at fire stations as a teenager and bought a radio scanner to listen to fire calls.

After having surgery to correct his vision, Rucker was inducted into the Novato Fire Department 11 years ago. His truck bore the personalized license plate “Fire Ruck.”

The firefighter died Oct. 29 on the porch of a house he was trying to save near Julian. He had traveled to assist in San Diego County from his fire station in the Bay Area.

Rucker’s sister, Starla Lincoln, said she had last spoken to her younger brother on his birthday, a few weeks earlier. “We talked about getting together in his new home, and having me and his niece and nephew spend the night and barbecue and try out the new hot tub,” she said. “He was happy. He was always happy.”

Rucker grew up in Fremont, south of Oakland, and attended Kennedy High School, where he played tuba in the band, the Marching Titans.

Band director Bob Sterling, 46, remembered Rucker as dependable, helpful and good-natured. “I don’t know if he was an old soul, but he kind of had an adult mannerism,” Sterling said. “Know how high school kids get kind of giddy? Well, he was kind of the opposite of that. Not real serious, but matter-of-fact.”

Rucker is survived by his wife, Cathy, and their two children, Wesley and Kerstin.

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Paradise Fire

San Diego County

Ashleigh Roach, 16; Talented Irish Dancer Had a Beautiful Smile

Friends and family described Ashleigh Roach as a golden-haired girl with a dazzling smile, a gift for dance and dreams of attending college in a faraway land.

San Diego County sheriff’s deputies rang the doorbell at the Roach family home in Valley Center on the morning of Oct. 26 to warn them about the fire.

The family split up into separate cars to try to outrun the fast-moving blaze. But a fireball engulfed the car that Ashleigh was riding in. Her older brother, Jason, managed to pull free their sister Allyson, whose body was on fire. But he could not reach Ashleigh.

A talented Irish dancer, the 16-year-old had placed at a recent competition in San Diego and was the newly elected queen of the House of Ireland, a San Diego organization that promotes Irish culture. She dreamed of attending Trinity University in Dublin.

“If you see a picture of her with a smile on her face, that’s how she was all the time,” said Laura Mead, a family friend from San Diego. “I’ll always remember that beautiful smile of hers.”

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Nancy Morphew, 51; Horse Trainer and Riding Coach

Nancy Morphew died protecting things she loved.

The 51-year-old Valley Center woman died Oct. 26 after being overtaken by fire as she tried to climb out of a ravine. She had accidentally driven her truck into the ravine while trying to position a horse trailer.

“She was trying to save the horses,” said her husband, Steve Morphew.

A horse trainer and riding coach, Nancy Morphew was focused on saving the 10 Arabian horses that lived on their 11-acre property.

Her love of horses led to her friendship with Mimi Gaffey, president of the Del Norte Arabian Horse Assn., of which Morphew was a member. She was also a volunteer for the organization. Gaffey described Morphew as a generous and supportive friend with a “wicked sense of humor.”

“She was quick with a laugh,” Gaffey said. “If you were in a down mood and you were with Nancy, you didn’t stay in a down mood for very long. She had that ability to cheer people up.”

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Old Fire

San Bernardino County

Charles H. Cunningham, 93; Retired Chief Master Sergeant

As his neighbors fled their homes in San Bernardino on Oct. 25, Charles H. Cunningham drove toward his, convinced that he wasn’t in danger.

The 93-year-old man died of a heart attack as he watched flames consume his home on Toluca Drive.

Cunningham, a former U.S. Air Force chief master sergeant and school maintenance man, moved to San Bernardino 39 years ago.

Aloha Smith, the priest at Cunningham’s church, St. Francis Episcopal, said Cunningham had still been every bit a military sergeant. “You didn’t tell him what to do,” she said. “He told you.”

Smith described him as a faithful churchgoer who had been involved in the church’s founding in 1967 and attended even the midweek services.

He and his wife had often taken trips in their camper, and he delighted neighborhood children with tales of his travels.

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Gene Knowles, 75; Ex-Technician Had a Good Sense of Humor

Something felt wrong when Big Bear resident Gene Knowles, 75, awoke early Oct. 26 while the Old fire was raging through the San Bernardino Mountains.

“He said he hurt and he needed to go to the hospital,” said his wife, Marie Knowles. She dialed 911 six times, only to hear a busy signal on each try.

Unable to summon help, she got her husband to their car and drove him to the emergency room at Bear Valley Community Hospital, four miles away.

Minutes after arriving, he suffered a fatal heart attack. Authorities said they listed him as a fire-related victim because the high volume of telephone calls prompted by the fire kept his wife from getting through to emergency workers. Married for 48 years, the couple had moved from Huntington Beach to Big Bear City -- a favorite vacation spot for them -- in 1989. Marie Knowles said her husband, a retired electronics technician for the Federal Aviation Administration, enjoyed the town’s four distinct seasons.

“He had a good sense of humor,” she said. “Everybody was his best friend.”

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James McDermith, 70; Retired CPA Was Eager to Travel

James McDermith had a wanderlust he never quite got to satisfy.

The 70-year-old Highland man purchased a trailer and a new Dodge pickup shortly after retiring in 1998 from his job as a certified public accountant. He planned to use the truck and trailer to travel with his wife, Mary Ellen, with whom he celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary in February.

But health problems postponed his plans.

McDermith died of a heart attack Oct. 25 while trying to retrieve his trailer from a nearby trailer park; he planned to use the trailer as a temporary shelter if his house burned down.

Donald McDermith recalled that his brother had taken the trailer on at least one trip, about two years ago, to Missouri.

“He was so enthused with his truck and camper,” Donald McDermith said.

“The sad part about it is, he just didn’t get to enjoy it too long,” said his daughter-in-law, Lisa McDermith. She described her father-in-law as a kind man with a dry sense of humor.

“He would just give you part of a story and leave you hanging there,” she said. “It was like you were a fish, and were you going to take the bait?”

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Ralph E. McWilliams, 67; Former Custodian Was Changing His Life

This summer, Ralph E. McWilliams, 67, had stopped smoking and had recently reconnected with his ex-wife after a 20-year estrangement.

“We talked for three hours, my sister and him and I,” said Lucy Pitt, McWilliams’ ex-wife. “He asked for my phone number and how to get to my apartment” in Riverside.

McWilliams had been having trouble breathing since Oct. 25 because smoke from the Grand Prix fire was clouding the air, said longtime friend Dolly Boron. The Crest Park man checked into a Fontana hospital, was evacuated to a hospital in Riverside and then, when he felt better several days later, joined his neighbors at an evacuation shelter at San Bernardino International Airport.

But on Nov. 2, McWilliams was rushed to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he died. Boron said doctors told her he had died from cardiac arrest brought on by respiratory distress.

McWilliams had retired in June from his job as a custodian at Mary Putnam Henck Intermediate School in Lake Arrowhead, friends said. He had previously worked as a foreman in the construction industry.

McWilliams and Boron participated regularly in a breakfast club for school employees at the Loose Caboose in Upper Crestline.

“He had kind of a grouchy disposition, but he was a real pussycat,” Boron recalled.

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Harold E. Rathbun, 43; Manager at Steel Firm Loved the Woods

Harold Rathbun loved the outdoors, whether he was hunting, horseback riding, cycling, scuba diving or even zooming around on a shiny Triumph motorcycle.

“He felt most at home in the woods,” said his eldest daughter, Tanya Rathbun.

The Old fire forced Rathbun, 43, to leave his Crestline home with his wife, Krystal, on Oct. 25. The couple, who had been married only two months, went down the desert side of the mountain to stay with relatives in Phelan.

Late on the night of Nov. 1, Rathbun decided to hike around 30 miles of roadblocks and sheriff’s checkpoints to see if the Crestline house and a Twin Peaks house he was moving into were still standing.

His body was found Nov. 5 under a bridge at Saw Pit Creek, about a third of the way up the mountain. The coroner’s report says Rathbun suffered fatal injuries in a fall.

He had left Phelan in an agitated state, probably because he was feeling powerless in the face of the fires, his daughter said.

“We went to the place where he was found, and all agreed that the route he took was doable, even in the dark,” Tanya Rathbun said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t know how slick the rocks had become, and he slipped.”

A licensed welding inspector, he was general manager at a steel construction firm in Bloomington.

“He was always so capable out there in the wilderness,” said his ex-wife, Christine Rathbun.

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Timothy Stewart, 27; Ministered to Youths

A youth pastor who played paintball and football with gusto, Timothy Stewart had stayed behind in his San Bernardino neighborhood Oct. 26 to water down houses and tape up other people’s windows, said his wife, Cari Stewart.

The 27-year-old father of two had taken his gas-powered, surfboard-size scooter up to the house for one last look, when he fell and hit his head about half a mile from his home. After firefighters and relatives found him unconscious, he was transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he died a week later.

For the last year and a half, the Fontana native had been working as a network administrator at Pacific Clay Products in Lake Elsinore.

On Friday nights, Stewart ministered to 12- to 18-year-olds at Evangel Christian Fellowship of San Bernardino.

Stewart had inscribed his wife’s and daughters’ names on his right shoulder, under the tattoo of a bold cross wrapped in a banner. The banner also named his favorite biblical passage: Philippians 4:13.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Cari Stewart recited.

“He lived his life like there was no tomorrow, basically,” she said. “He didn’t have a whole lot of fear or hold-backs.”

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Robert Taylor, 54; Custom Woodworker Lost Home

Robert Taylor loved working with his hands. He laid tile, fitted custom woodwork and built wine racks at restaurants across Southern California. A few months ago, he completed an oak-paneled kitchen in his San Bernardino home.

Taylor, 54, was working in Orange County when his daughter Trisha “Sissy” Mitchell saw the flames approaching on Oct. 25 and called to tell him. He returned to San Bernardino and they, along with her husband and children, fled to a relative’s house in Lynwood.

They returned the next day to find Taylor’s home destroyed.

He sadly surveyed the remains of his home, his tools and his Suzuki motorcycle.

“What can you do?” he told a Times reporter. “There’s nothing to do but move on.”

Still, Taylor walked over from his daughter’s nearby house every day to check on the smoldering ruins. “He kept telling me, ‘I’m going to take a walk, Sissy, and I’ll be back,’ ” Mitchell said.

On Nov. 1, Taylor told his daughter that he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to lie down. He suddenly started screaming, and Mitchell called an ambulance. He died at Arrowhead Regional Hospital of a heart attack or a stroke.

“More than likely, stress brought on the stroke or the heart attack,” Mitchell said. “His blood pressure had just skyrocketed.”

Mitchell cannot believe he is gone. “All I have left are his wallet, checkbook, keys, tape measure and a watch and the clothes he wore the day of the fire.”

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Chad Williams, 70; Retired Firefighter Hard to Rattle

In his 28 years with the San Bernardino City Fire Department, Chad Williams never got flustered, colleagues said. He handled a wild commercial blaze with the same composure as a much smaller fire.

“His voice was never raised,” said Howard Bennett, a battalion chief at the city’s central fire station, who worked with Williams before he retired. “He told you what he needed done and we kind of did it. That kind of calm is contagious.”

On Oct. 25, Williams, 70, was loading his car as the Old fire crept toward his Crestline neighborhood. He suffered a heart attack and died en route to the hospital.

“I’m sure it was the stress involved, and he didn’t slow down,” said his wife, Ginger Williams. “It was too much for his heart.”

The couple moved to Crestline when Williams retired from the Fire Department about 10 years ago.

The Williamses volunteered at Mary’s Mercy Center in San Bernardino, a shelter for the poor. Chad took care of the electrical and plumbing problems at the center and volunteered to give out meals and gifts at Christmas.

“He was kind of quiet, but when he said things, it was profound and you got it, or it was funny and you laughed your head off,” Ginger Williams said.

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Times staff writers Allison Hoffman and Lance Pugmire contributed to this report.