NORTH COUNTY -- At least two local hospitals -- Pomerado Hospital in Poway and Fallbrook Hospital in Fallbrook -- scrambled Monday to get their patients out of harm's way, moving them to other healthcare facilities as raging flames threatened surrounding communities.

Meanwhile, hospitals throughout San Diego County worked to absorb the displaced patients, calling in extra staff members and moving back non-urgent surgeries to free resources for emergency care.

Along the coast, Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas reported around 3 p.m. that it was completely full.

Scripps Encinitas spokeswoman Julie Lee said her facility had stopped accepting new emergency-room patients and was on standby for its own possible evacuation. However, she said, hospitals throughout the region were working together to ensure everyone in need of medical care was getting it.

"All hospitals have certain policies and procedures in place for disasters," said Lee. "And obviously, this is a disaster countywide. We're all in touch very frequently and communicating, and based on conditions, we will certainly make adjustments."

Palomar Pomerado Health owns and operates Pomerado Hospital and the Villa Pomerado skilled nursing center that shares the hospital's Pomerado Road campus. Both those facilities were evacuated. The public hospital district also runs Palomar Medical Center in Escondido.

Palomar, which is the designated trauma center for North County, continued to accept and treat new patients throughout the day.

At Pomerado and Villa Pomerado, the evacuations began just before 9 a.m. Employees began using buses borrowed from the Poway Unified School District and Poway Fire Department ambulances to move about 80 patients from Pomerado and 122 from Villa Pomerado to several other different San Diego-area hospitals.

The patients were taken to Sharp Memorial Hospital in Kearny Mesa, Sharp Grossmont Hospital in East County, Kaiser Hospital in Mission Gorge, Alvarado Hospital near San Diego State University and Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas.

Pomerado spokesman Andy Hoang said the transfers went smoothly and were completed around 2 p.m.

"The only way we could really guarantee the safety of our patients was to make that decision earlier (rather than later) to get our patients out of there," he said shortly after 3 p.m. "And it was a good thing we did. Just an hour ago, a San Diego police officer came and ordered everyone (who was not essential) to evacuate."

The order came as flames bore down on the hospital and other parts of central Poway, Hoang said. Preparing to leave the hospital himself, he described it as being covered in "a thick, thick layer of ash" and surrounded by "dark, dark skies."

A skeleton crew planned to remain behind to care for anyone who might need medical treatment in Pomerado's emergency room, he said.

Anyone seeking information about the location of a loved one who was being cared for at Pomerado Hospital or Villa Pomerado should call (858) 613-4103.

Fallbrook Hospital personnel were forced to move their own patients after authorities ordered that unincorporated community's entire population out around 3 p.m. A woman who answered the phone at Fallbrook Hospital soon afterward confirmed that the order included the hospital, saying, "Ma'am, we're evacuating" in an urgent tone.

At Scripps Encinitas, Lee said Scripps doctors, nurses and other employees who were unable to get to their jobs at some of the health care system's other San Diego-area facilities came to the Encinitas hospital, leaving it very well-staffed. The 138-bed hospital took in one Pomerado Hospital patient and treated 20 people for smoke inhalation and other fire-related injuries that did not include any burns before it ran out of beds, she said.

All hospitals in the region participate in a countywide trauma system that determines which hospital treats someone needing urgent medical care.

Hospital administrators throughout the region said they had canceled elective surgeries, pushed up the evaluations of patients who might be ready for discharge, called in extra staff members and taken other steps to ensure their ability to handle patients displaced from the Fallbrook and Poway hospitals.

Authorities said Monday afternoon that they saw no need to transfer patients to hospitals outside the county, county spokeswoman Holly Crawford said.

Alvarado Hospital and Sharp Grossmont Hospital were among those whose administrators said they canceled non-urgent surgeries. As of noon, fewer than 10 people who had been patients at Pomerado had been admitted to Sharp Grossmont, officials said.

All hospital staff from Alvarado and Grossmont were being asked to report to work if possible. Authorities at Sharp Grossmont have also set up emergency housing and day care for employees, said Bruce Harman, manager of marketing and communications.

Suellyn Ellerbe, chief operating officer and chief nurse executive at Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, said freeway closures kept some Pomerado patients away from her hospital. As of 5 p.m., though, Tri-City had received 16 of Fallbrook Hospital's patients and was expecting one more, she said.

The Oceanside hospital also set up two large tents on its grounds and was assessing and treating patients in the temporary quarters, said Ellerbe.

The hospital's emergency department, meanwhile, had treated 91 patients by 5 p.m., a number that Tri-City spokesman Jeff Segal said was twice that seen on a normal day. Many of those cases involved people suffering from respiratory problems brought on by smoke and ash, he and Ellerbe said.

Segal said the countywide trauma system, which he described as "a mutual aid-type system," was working exactly as intended.

"All of us are sort of watching each other," he said. "So even though we're not right next to the flames, we're still very much involved in the process."

As of 3 p.m., there were no plans to evacuate patients from Palomar Medical Center, though Hoang said the situation was being evaluated regularly as flames threatened various parts of Escondido.

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com. Staff writers Shayna Chabner and Darryn Bennett contributed to this report.