POWAY - The bodies of six people, two in North County and four near the U.S.-Mexico border, have been found burned in the areas of the recent fires, authorities announced Thursday.

The bodies of a couple who lived in the northeast, unincorporated area of Poway were discovered by San Diego County Sheriff's Department deputies.

Found in the southern part of the county were four bodies in what was believed to be a migrant camp just east of San Diego.

The bodies were found in a wooded area near Barrett Junction, along the Mexican border in unincorporated San Diego County, said Paul Parker, a spokesman for the San Diego County medical examiner's office.

In Poway, the bodies, said by family friends to be those of a husband and wife in their mid-50s, were found inside a burned garage about 100 feet down the driveway from a house at 15834 Highland Valley Road.

They were identified by family friends Wednesday as Christopher Bain and Victoria Fox. They had not been heard from for days. They have a college-age son, Michael, who was away at school during the blaze, friends said.

"Chris was just a fantastic man," said Escondido resident Jim Newheiser, whose son is a close friend of the couple's son. "He had a huge beneficial influence in my son's life as a scout leader. … He was a mentor."

The fire victims have not officially been identified by the medical examiner's office, which needs a couple of days to identify the couple using dental records, said James Buckley, an investigator with the office.

The garage in which Bain and Fox were found was surrounded by four burned cars and a Volkswagen Beetle that was more or less unscathed.

It was unclear, authorities said, if they were attempting to flee the flames at the last minute or had made a decision to stay.

The residence, referred to as the "Rancho de los Tres Arcos," or three arches ranch, sits alone atop a hill with a 360-degree view of the San Pasqual Valley and surrounding San Diego County. It has a long, winding, private driveway that runs alongside a seared avocado grove and passes by three other homes that were reduced to ash in the blaze.

While some homes in the area were unscathed by the flames, including one that stands next to a vineyard in the valley directly below, many of the homes near the couple's home were destroyed. Bain and Fox's house was reduced to three prominent entryway arches, surrounded by feet of shattered roof tiles, charred bricks and black and grey debris.

The couple were told by neighbors to evacuate the home Sunday during the approach of the Witch Creek fire, which swept through Poway that night, authorities said.

Neighbors said that they last saw the couple at their home at about midnight Monday, according to the Sheriff's Department. They called the Sheriff's Department to check on the couple when they hadn't heard from them, officials said.

When crews first arrived at the home Wednesday night, they saw the residence was "completely destroyed by the fire" and said they were unable to find human remains. A Sheriff's Department Search and Rescue team was sent to the scene later in the evening and found the remains of one human at 7:35 p.m. Wednesday. They located the remains of the other on Thursday.

Friends said Bain was an outdoorsman who was known as a survivor.

"He was the kind of guy that you would think could stick it out," Newheiser said, adding that Chris frequently took Boy Scouts on hiking and camping trips.

He also helped guide Newheiser's 19-year-old son, Daniel, and his own son, through the process of earning the rank of Eagle Scout.

"(The outdoors) was something that he had a love for his whole life," Daniel said, adding that he was a very skilled outdoorsman. "It must have happened extremely fast."

The female victim, Daniel added, was a warm and inviting woman.

She was said to have been a teacher and he was a real estate broker.

"The important thing was that he was like a father to me," Daniel said Thursday. "We were very, very close."

The deaths are believed to be the first confirmed deaths from the Witch Creek fire, authorities said.

Along the border, it was the Harris fire that's believed to have killed the four people found near Barrett Junction.

Authorities said they discovered the bodies Thursday afternoon in an area that was burned by one of the wildfires blackening hundreds of thousands of acres across Southern California.

It was unclear how long ago the victims died.

The sex and ages of the victims also were unknown.

The area was burned by the Harris fire, which has straddled the U.S.-Mexico border.

That fire claimed the life of a 52-year-old Tecate man who refused to leave his house when the area was evacuated Sunday.

Contact staff writer Shayna Chabner at (760) 740-5416 or schabner@nctimes.com.