RANCHO BERNARDO -- Carrol Noe found a bit of joy in a few pieces of Flow Blue china. Her son, Tim, found it in his wife's wedding band. And for Caren Sheffler, it was the sight of a dirty but alive rabbit hunkered in flooded bushes outside her half-burned family room's door.

"When I saw it, I was so happy I just started jumping up and down," Sheffler said about the family pet. "We couldn't fit it in the car when we left, so all I could do was open the cage, set it out and hope it would run. … I couldn't believe it was right there."

Westwood fire victims savored those small pleasures and whatever others they could find Thursday after they were allowed back into their badly burned neighborhood for the first time since the Witch Creek fire whipped through before dawn Monday. The massive blaze destroyed an estimated 308 homes in Rancho Bernardo, with more than 100 of those in the Westwood community west of Interstate 15.

A city tally of the lost properties had given many homeowners some idea about whether their homes were gone by Wednesday. Others said they had seen their houses either burning or still standing on TV news broadcasts.

Roadblocks that kept people out of the community for three days after the fire denied many residents from verifying the status of their properties, though. When the roadblocks came down just past noon Thursday, a steady stream of vehicles began pouring into the neighborhood.

Returning evacuees' shock at what they saw was evident in the single-digit speeds at which they drove and the stunned or horrified looks on their faces. But they also displayed fortitude and a determination to see each other through this grim chapter of their lives.

"We're going to have to take care of everyone," said resident Kristen Carpenter, whose house did not burn. "We're going to get through this."

Sally and Tim John were among the first to visit their destroyed home Thursday. Escorted into the neighborhood by a Farmers Insurance representative ahead of the roadblocks' removal, the couple said they had time to grab just a few items -- some photos, a laptop and work files -- before they fled the flames about 4:30 a.m. Monday.

"I think I knew (the house was lost) when we left -- when I saw the fireball up the hill and down the hill," Tim John said.

He said he and his wife never thought they had anything to worry about firewise, because the 20,000-acre San Dieguito River Park was behind their home. Sally John said she will miss lost little items that the couple's children gave them and things like the letterman's jackets her kids earned in high school. All were lost.

Still, "they always say things don't matter, "and they don't. That's so cemented in here," she said, patting the area above her heart.

Describing the neighborhood as one full of old-fashioned neighborliness and spirit, though, Tim John said the couple will rebuild. In the meantime, they said, they are drawing comfort from the kindness of others.

"I've gotten hugs from strangers," Sally John said. "The compassion …. that's the beauty that comes out of this."

Cherie Guerrero was lucky enough to find her Creciente Court house intact when she arrived home around 12:30 p.m. Standing with her hand over her mouth and her eyes filled with tears while looking at three houses that burned to the ground across the street, though, Guerrero said she felt sick about her neighbors' losses.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "The devastation and to lose every single thing you have 'cause we didn't have time to take anything … "

On Azucar Way, Juliette Pastor struggled with her emotions as she stood in the driveway after she and her family walked around the ruins of the house Pastor and her husband, Leo, bought in 1984. The middle-age couple raised two sons and a daughter in the home, Juliette Pastor said.

Drawing her breath deeply, she said, "It's so hard …"

Her husband tried to keep things in perspective, saying the family's lives were more important than any house.

"We have to thank God that we survived this," Leo Pastor said. "Some people say we are victims of the fire in San Diego. But no. We say we are not victims -- we are survivors."

Farther up the street, Carrol and Bob Noe's sons helped the couple, who are in their 60s, sifted through the ruins of the place they called home for 10 years. Tim Noe, 31, said he, his wife Jennifer and their 4-year-old son, Tim, were in the house when the fire hit the neighborhood, but his parents were on vacation in Charleston, S.C.

On Thursday, the family searched the rubble for family jewelry and any other personal items they might find. Together, they soon unearthed a small but growing pile of pieces from Carrol Noe's Blue Flow china collection, and Bob Noe put a smile on his son's face when he handed over Jennifer's ash-encrusted diamond wedding band, grinning as he told his son it meant he was still married.

Carrol Noe said she wasn't really worried about having to start over.

"The (loss of) things my mother gave me -- she died about 12 years ago -- and things my mother-in-law gave me … I regret that," she said. "That's sad. But furniture, your house, those things can be replaced."

Half a block away, Sheffler toured her partially burned house with her three children and one of their friends, who had lost his home a street away. Although her sons, Brandon, 13, and Tristen, 10, chattered away with their friend throughout the visit, her 11-year-old daughter, Ashlyn, was her mother's silent and solemn shadow until she spotted something on the family's dining room table.

"Mom, I saw my homework project," the girl said excitedly. "And it's OK."

Saying she knew more Rancho Bernardo residents who had lost their homes than one who had not, Sheffler counted her blessings.

"I'm just so blessed that my kids are safe," she said. "It (the fire) could have happened at 4 in the afternoon when we were scattered all over. And all my mementos are in the garage, and that's fine."

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.