290-acre fire near Lake Elsinore contained

By: NICOLE SACK - Staff Writer | Monday, November 13, 2006 10:52 PM PST ∞

LAKELAND VILLAGE -- Lorn Wright was sitting on his porch overlooking Lake Elsinore on Sunday evening just before sunset. He was about to install a door in the kitchen of his Hollister Drive home when a neighbor ran into his yard to break the news that would change the evening.
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Without delay, Wright's attention turned to the hillside next to his home as the pink-sunset sky was replaced with a fiery-orange glow. Wright, 56, and his son, Joel, 23, grabbed hoses and began to water down the roof and surrounding property. When the flames crested the ridgeline in the Cleveland National Forest, Wright said, the spires of fire dwarfed the trees on the slope.

"I saw it come over the hill, and thought 'OK, fire.' But then it just kept getting bigger. All we could do was just keep watering down the hillside," Wright said.

On Monday, about 24 hours after the blaze began at 4:30 p.m. Sunday near Grand Avenue and Via Oeste, firefighters had it surrounded, said Cheri Patterson public information officer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

During that time, the brush fire charred 290 acres. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, Patterson said.

While the Lakeland Village homes were spared damage, the threat was too close for comfort for residents such as Wright, who live in areas that were placed under voluntary evacuation by fire authorities.

Even when the voluntary evacuation became mandatory for the residents of Hollister Drive, Wright stayed behind and stood at the edge of his property "like John Wayne shootin' hoses."

"I thought for a while I was going to lose the house. I didn't want to go. The firemen are limited with water and have to use tankers up here. I knew they would do a good job, but I didn't want to go," Wright said.

The flames reached out of the nearby gully and into Wright's yard. Fortunately, the fire did not make it past the wet lawn.

Fire officials estimated 400 homes were threatened by the fire. None were destroyed.

Jayme Quinn, who also lives on Hollister, said the fire brought the entire neighborhood into action.

"Everyone was out spraying down houses and really stepping it up," Quinn said. "It's amazing how people come together."

Quinn and her husband, Greg Quinn, sent their two children off with friends to safety as the couple stayed at home grabbing animals and valuables. They even took their fish.

"There had been a voluntary evacuation, but then all of a sudden we were told that we had three minutes to get out," Quinn said. "When we got to the bottom of the hill, all we could see were the flames and the embers flying everywhere. I was really trying to hold it together for our kids. But there was a time when I just had to duck behind a car and lost it."

Battalion Chief Mike Ritchey of CDF's Southern Region Operations, said the fire acted abnormally as it burned aggressively through Sunday evening -- a time when humidity is up and temperatures are down, conditions that usually slow the spread of the blaze. He said the intensity of the fire was fueled by the thick mountainside brush, which has not burned since the late 1970s, Ritchey said.

Quinn said residents were allowed to start returning to their homes by 9:30 p.m.

"We slept in the living room -- if you can call that sleep," Quinn said. "When I walked out of the house this morning, it was surreal. Everything was charred and smoke still hung to the hills."

Fire Capt. Julie Hutchinson said that while the blaze was 100 percent surrounded by Monday night, crews would remain on the scene for a couple of days to ensure that all the embers were out.

Hutchinson said 260 firefighters worked Sunday night through Monday morning to surround 30 percent of the fire. By Monday morning, a new shift of 220 firefighters continued the work. The winds had died down to a near standstill, which gave firefighters the edge and allowed them to have 75 percent of the fire surrounded by 3:30 p.m Monday.

The fire support wasn't limited to those in uniform, said Margaret Livingston, a resident of Hollister Drive.

"People who didn't even know us were bringing us hoses and water," Livingston said. "A teenage girl I didn't know came to me and said, 'My mom went through a hurricane and she wished she had gotten her photos and records out of the house.'"

Livingston heeded the advice of the stranger and collected her family pictures, heirlooms and documents.

"I was just about ready to go, but I couldn't find my shoes," Livingston said. "These teenage girls had packed them for me. I just remember thinking, 'At least my high heels are safe.'"

While Livingston could laugh under the clear sunny day, her outlook was bleak the night before when fire encroached dangerously close to Hollister Drive.

"Last night, I really thought our houses were gone," Livingston said. "This morning, I woke up in my own bed, in my house, and just kept saying, 'Thank you, God. Thank you, God.'"

-- Contact staff writer Nicole Sack (951) 676-4315 Ext., 2616, or nsack@californian.com.

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