4:00 update: Despite rumors to the contrary, there have been no arrests in connection with looting in Fallbrook since the start of the Rice fire, Sheriff's Sgt. Dave Nemeth said at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

He said that two men found "in an area where they didn't belong" were arrested based on outstanding warrants, but not in connection with looting.

In Fallbrook, "extremely dangerous fire activity" raced through the area after midnight Wednesday, threatening an additional 400 homes in the area of the shifting northern boundry in Rainbow Glen near De Luz, officials said of the Rice Canyon fire today.

The loss of homes -- if any -- inside the new fire lines was unknown late Wednesday morning, but CDF spokesman David Shew said he was told that crews were able to save homes.

"They were fighting really hard to keep those homes," Shew said.

The projected fire lines moved about two miles northwest, crossing the Santa Margarita river bed and establishing itself in the vegetation in the drainage area.

"This moved so fast last night," Shew said. "We shifted all our resources up north."

Fire crews are using a bull dozer to create a fire break in the north and west areas of Fallbrook.

On top of the advance into new burn areas, fire officials were also concerned about squirrelly winds as the weather pattern reverses itself and begins to blow wind from the coast.

That has officials watching for the fire to run back over areas it has already been through, and fueling itself with whatever remains there.

But the "reburn factor" is relatively low, CDF official Kelly Dreesmann said during a Wednesday morning briefing at the base camp at North County Fire Protection District on Ivy Street in Fallbrook.

"Most of the areas already have pretty complete burns," Dreesmann said.

Damage estimates as of Wednesday morning stayed at about 206 homes lost, most of them in the Valley Oaks mobile home park off Reche Road, north of the Pala Mesa Resort.

Shew and Dreesmann said crews with the county's damage assessment team will make its way through Fallbrook soon.

Officials are also meeting this morning to come up with a plan as to when and how to get the areas more than 35,000 evacuees back into the area.

"There's a lot of worns in that can," said Bill Metcalf, chief of the North County Fire Protection District for Fallbrook, Bonsall and Rainbow.

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.

Ruins dot landscape as Fallbrook remains under evacuation orders

By: TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer

FALLBROOK -- A still-out-of-control fire raged in Fallbrook on Tuesday, destroying more than 200 homes, many in the eastern end of town.

Another 1,500 homes remained threatened by the fire as night fell, although calmer-than-predicted winds slowed the advance of the flames. Firefighters had the blaze about 10 percent contained in the evening hours, and officials project they may have it fully contained Sunday.

In some corners of town, there was nothing to pick through.

"It's all ashes," said Dee Webb as she stood at the end of the long driveway to what was her home in the community's Red Mountain area. "The things that you cannot replace are still left in your memory and in your heart."

It's the type of realization that will play out repeatedly this week as the blaze, dubbed the Rice Canyon fire, has shredded at least 7,500 acres along the hills, valleys and homesteads, including those in Pala Mesa and Fallbrook, since the fire was first reported about 4:10 a.m. Monday.

The cause of the fire is unknown.

San Diego County officials report that Alla M. Robinson, a 91-year-old patient at Fallbrook Hospital, died of natural causes while being evacuated to Tri-City Medical Center on Monday.

The woman was among five people in the county whose death has been attributed to the blazes ravaging the region.

Mobile home park decimated

In Pala Mesa, off Reche Road and not very far west of Interstate 15, smoke blanketed the Valley Oaks mobile home park.

There, the devastation was stunning. The fire destroyed more than half the homes on the northern side of the park, leaving only warped metal in its wake.

"A lot of good people lost their homes here," 78-year-old resident Salko Sacic said, waving his arm across a landscape that had been alive and colorful when he evacuated Monday.

When he returned Tuesday, the only colors were shades of gray.

Sacic gestured toward a twisted roof lying on top of a home foundation.

"The woman that lives there is 93 years old," Sacic said in his thick Slavic accent, adding that the woman is a widow who relies on her Social Security check to get by each month.

At the mobile home park, fire hoses -- evidence of the battle to save the residences -- lay scorched in the middle of the lanes. In some areas, homes on one side of the street were still standing, while homes on the other side were nothing more than ash.

In the yard of an untouched home, a 3-foot-tall angel statue with a bowed head and clasped hands faced devastation only 25 feet away, just across the little road that snakes through the mobile home park.

Residents ordered to stay out

Fallbrook remains under evacuation order.

"We're pretty much at the mercy of Mother Nature right now," spokesman David Stew said. "We are shoving people (firefighters) out there as fast as we can."

The winds were relatively calm as the Dee Webb and her husband Bob surveyed the ruins of their Red Mountain area property Tuesday morning.

The 71-year-old Dee Webb bit back the tears. It's all gone: Her A-frame home with what would normally be a breathtaking view.

On Tuesday, it was thick and heavy smoke stealing her breath. She and her husband stood at the driveway of their home on the 3700 block of East Mission Road.

Their daughter-in-law walked up, arms full with items she had just picked up at Major Market -- one of the few stores open in a town where more than 40,000 people were told to get out.

"Are you OK?" the teary-eyed woman asked Jennifer Webb, who had also lost her home, which had stood in the back part of the lot.

"It hasn't hit yet," the younger woman told her mother-in-law. "I'm thinking I must be in shock. My fingers are trembling."

Jennifer Webb paused. "Well, at least it's a way to clean house," she said, reaching for humor.

Unsettling explosions -- probably coming from training exercises at Camp Pendleton -- echoed through the hills in Fallbrook as the two women comforted each other.

Little still standing

Jennifer Webb then made the long, heartbreaking walk up the driveway to the ruins of her family's homes.

In the mess, surrounded by smoldering ruins, a birdbath survived. A little over three-feet tall, it was topped with a little boy playing what appeared to be a pan flute.

She and husband Matt Webb, 37, surveyed piles of ashes peppered with metal -- charred bedsprings on one heap, what was maybe an air-conditioning unit on another.

The woman reached down into the spot where her 7-year-old daughter's room stood. There among the remains was a little ceramic keepsake, a figurine she'd given young Sierra Webb when the little girl was born.

It had survived the flames. Broken in two, but salvageable.

"Oh my god," her husband Matt Webb said, looking at the little Precious Moments statue of a sleeping infant tucked into a bed. He slipped his arm around his wife and kissed her head.

"That's her headboard," Matt said, pointing to his daughter's bed.

At the time, just about 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, none of the family had told Sierra that her home was gone. The child was out of the area, safe with relatives in Riverside County.

Jennifer Webb, 38, cradled the figurine in her hands and walked down the hill and out of the muck.

"It stinks. Smells like a campfire," Webb said with a little laugh. "I don't think I will want a campfire for a long time."

Bob Webb -- 73 years old and a retired firefighter -- sat on a bench at the bottom of the driveway. He crossed his legs and lit a cigarette.

They were able to save their cat. But Dee Webb's aviary, with more than 65 doves living inside, was now just twisted metal. None of the birds survived.

The Webb family has been through this before. In 1980, the Panorama fire destroyed their home in San Bernardino County.

Matt Webb was just 10 years old when it happened.

Twenty-seven years later, he and his parents were again kicking through smoldering ruins.

"All of this is material," Dee Webb said. "The real problem is the interruption in your life."

Even though her son and daughter-in-law trekked up and poked through the ashes, Dee Webb had stayed at the bottom of the driveway. She couldn't bear the steep and heartbreaking walk to her hillside home -- which, she said, will stand again.

"We will rebuild," Dee Webb said. "I wouldn't give up my view for nothing."

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 631-6624 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.

Rice Canyon fire quick facts

• Area burned: 7,500 acres

• Cause of the fire: Undetermined

• Homes destroyed: 206

• Vehicles destroyed: 91

• Avocado trees destroyed: 21,000

• Other damage: Two commercial buildings; one bridge

• Western boundary: Gird Road and Live Oak Park Road

• Southern boundary: Somewhere north of Highway 76

• Eastern boundary: Rice Canyon Road

• Northern boundary: Shifting, in Rainbow Glen near De Luz

• Homes threatened: 1,500

• Containment: 10 percent

• Full containment expected: Sunday, Oct. 28

• Personnel working the fire: 723

• Potential turning point in firefighting effort: Wednesday morning

• Key threatened area: Rainbow Glen

• Wednesday weather outlook: Better, with low winds, but still dry

• Other facts:

-Mandatory evacuation still in effect in Fallbrook

-Calmer winds than anticipated helped stem the fire's advancement toward Fallbrook on Tuesday

*Source: North County Fire Protection District, Cal Fire

*All information as of 7 p.m. Tuesday