VISTA - Her former church had become an evacuation center and her grandparents had packed their bags and were prepared to flee.

Last week's destructive wildfires drove ex-Vista resident Katie Polone to tears and prompted her to take action, even though she's only 13 and now lives in Texas.

Katie launched a coin drive last week at Fossil Hill Middle School in Ft. Worth to raise money for fire victims. In addition to her seventh- and eighth-grade peers, businesses in her town of Keller are chipping in to the fund, which will go to the Red Cross.

"I looked at the (fire) pictures online and saw how devastating it was," Katie said by telephone Tuesday regarding last week's fires.

"At that point I started crying," she added. "I saw all the people at my (former) school being touched by this and it was really hard to watch everyone going through this so I decided to start the coin drive."

As a first-grader, Katie attended New Song Christian School in Oceanside, which opened as an evacuation center last week. Her relatives are still scattered throughout North County, including her grandparents, Chuck and Sandy Riffe, who live in Vista.

Sandy Riffe said Tuesday that, with Santa Ana winds in the forecast and with the glow of the Poomacha fire still visible from her back porch, she and her husband remain prepared to evacuate. In the meantime, they're proud of their granddaughter's concern for others.

"We just know Katie's heart," Sandy Riffe said. "She will always be a caregiver and someone who's willing to get in there and do something if she needs to."

Katie said she doesn't know what she's collected so far but that the donation buckets in her school's cafeteria are getting fuller. Businesses also are contributing.

Chick-fil-A is treating donors to sandwiches and Tornado Terry's is offering a prize. Wal-mart plans to donate to Katie's cause and has let her collect donations in front of one of its stores, she said.

Katie said she hopes the giving will be contagious.

"Hopefully, starting this, other schools will start and we can help California in a way I never thought we could," she said.

- Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 901-4074 or akaye@nctimes.com.