Santiago Canyon Fire

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Thousands of acres of Southern California and hundreds of homes are gone because the wildfires. Loss estimates start at a billion dollars for San Diego County alone. A few people are dead, a few dozen injured, but for me, it all comes down to one house.

This tragedy started for me when I was called in to work to help with the coverage of the Malibu fire, but fires are easiest to ignore when they are burning unknown, undeveloped acres.

The magnitude of it all didn’t hit me until Castle Kashan burned down. One house. Kashan was a castle in Malibu. Most of us had never -- and would never -- have heard of it unless the fire occurred. Now, I know it had just been listed on the market for $17 million when it went up in flames. I know about million dollar chandeliers, gifts from presidents from the last 40 years, and many other priceless keepsakes and antiques that were lost. I learned it from hearing interviews of those who cared about the property, as they fought through tears to explain their devastation.

At that point the fire became real, and since then I’ve heard many other stories of incredible tragedy. I have felt fear for friends and family as the Santiago fire approached my cousins who live in Tustin, and my best friend who resides in Irvine. I’ve had conversations with my brother in San Diego every few hours, as multiple wildfires seemingly encircle him and the city in a ring of fire.

On Wednesday, the story got all the more personal, as I ventured off to Orange County and the Santiago fire lines.
When I drive home to Los Angeles, after visiting people in Orange County, I always notice the thin layer of haze as I cross the county line. Years of pollution have turned the skies of LA a not so subtle shade of gray; one you grow accustomed to the longer you live in the city.

When I drove south on I-405 I felt as if things were backwards. Instead of the skies getting bluer as I entered Orange County, they turned a uniform gray. The mountain line on the horizon, normally a dark contrast with blue skies, disappeared, and the sun had a dirty layer of red film over it.

By the time I reached Irvine there was a thickness to the air. It was like stepping into a dust machine. My eyes started to hurt and I could see white spots appearing on the black cars I passed -- it was ash.

I drove to a hilltop near where Highway 133 intersects 405. As I looked down on the freeway I marveled at how gray everything looked. Irvine was in a fog machine. Then I turned around. A far darker, blacker cloud had collected over the Portola Hills and Trabuco Canyon.

Moving north toward the fires I got a contradictory image. While the environment was clouded, completely enveloped in smoke, black columns grew more and more defined in the distance, each representing an ongoing fire. The closer I got, the clearer the columns became, until finally I could clearly see the orange flames.

After passing the police check point, I headed for Live Oak Canyon Road, a staging point for those fighting the southern edge of the Santiago fire. I met with a fellow reporter at Cook’s Corner, a local bar that had become a relief station for the firefighters and locals. The owner and manager had realized that those fighting the flames were going unfed for days, so they took donations from local stores like Costco, Vons and Target, and opened their doors. They kept water and Gatorade on ice, chicken on the grill, and everything from eye drops and lip balm to tube socks and underwear in stock for those who needed them.

We headed down the road, passing fire trucks from all over the state: Brea, Tustin, Laguna Beach, Long Beach, Rocklin, Pasadena; northern cities like Modesto, and small volunteer departments like one from Holy Jim Canyon. We parked alongside a fire truck, to peek into the canyon. My veteran counterpart told me to leave the windows rolled down, the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition. It would be easier to make a quick getaway that way.

From the side of the road we could see crews at work, smoke in the distance, and a house on a hill that somehow still stood. It was three stories tall, with a long steep driveway, and a wooden balcony wrapping three-quarters around. It was the bull’s eye of a giant dartboard. The ring surrounding it was normal enough; tall oak trees, and small fruit ones. A rubber ducky bobbing away in the pool.

Outside was a far larger ring containing nothing but charred earth.

We went to take a closer look. As we turned down the path toward the driveway we saw the names of the streets that intersect farther down Live Oak Canyon Road. Okie Dokey and Hunky Dory.

The house was part of a private gated community of homes, which struck me as completely unnecessary considering the seclusion already offered by the canyon. Seclusion that has brought questioning of officials in recent days, people who want to know why homes are even built inside of these canyons, to why houses are allowed to be another twig amongst the kindling.

Climbing the steep incline of the driveway put me out of breath. Smoke filled my lungs and clouded my eyes. It was like being a marshmallow in the campfire. All the while, helicopters carried in load after load and doused the flames as they saw them from the sky. We only knew their success by the changing color of the smoke.

After applauding the firefighters on a great job in saving this house, I learned how difficult firefighting really is. The firefighter told me how changing winds serve as a sort of combating army against their own assault to save the homes. Santa Ana winds blow the flames toward the ocean, and then after getting used to the flow of the fire, it can all change as new winds blow in from offshore. They can throw as little as a single ember, and flank the firefighters.

A single ember caught near the front yard, or what was left of it. The firefighters allowed it to burn, not wanting to leave too much vegetation to spark later after they’d left and consume the house, despite their hard work. They tried to save a small fruit tree as well. Compassion for nature, despite its own attacks on them.

We started to head down the driveway when billowing smoke and leaping flames cut off our path. The fire had caught a taller tree. It sounded like twigs being snapped in half in succession, but at a ridiculous pace. Aside from the smoke now filling my lungs, and now blinding my eyes, there was another concern when it came to leaving the property. Power lines.

A pole holding the lines was right next to the fire-engulfed tree. The same firefighters who were encouraging us to leave at our leisure now thought we should stay. I remember chuckling to myself, just to ease the stress, not because I thought anything was funny.

Eventually the firefighters again beat down the flames, and we could leave. The Santiago fire was subdued but only half contained. It had scorched nearly 20,000 acres, destroyed nine homes and damaged eight others. Despite the efforts of 600 firefighters from departments all over the state, early estimates put the damage just here at $10 million.

We went back to Cook’s Corner, filing reports, looking at pictures, and talking to the people who had gathered. My car was now looked like a black and white speckled garage floor; only it was ash, not paint. The sky was so full of smoke that you couldn’t tell if a red moon hovered in a night sky, or a red sun was still up late in the day.

Firemen sought us out for news of the other fires around the state and word on the arson investigation that was ongoing. One woman from nearby Modjeska Canyon asked what I knew of the damage up there. I told her eight houses were destroyed, and six others damaged, but I didn’t know if any were hers.
So many people affected in a small community, outside of Irvine. It was mountainous, canyon country, that didn’t fit the image portrayed of the OC. People volunteering time to help feed and encourage those who had volunteered themselves to serve as firefighters.

News reports told me that statewide the fires had turned. The story started to change from growing fires and displaced, distressed citizens to controlled fires and people planning to return home. The fires were starting to subside, the battle had turned and in the end, despite the thousands of acres lost, and lives affected, the turning moment for me was this one house on a street off Live Oak Canyon Road.
A three-story house, which had the fire not occurred, I’d never have known it existed. One house.

Pictures from the fire:

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