The California fires — surviving infernos
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LOS ANGELES — Southern California's beautiful mountain ranges turned into rolling infernos, sending hot flames through suburbs of San Diego, San Bernardino and Los Angeles the last week of October.
Some 400,000 members of the Church were affected. Damage assessments will take weeks to complete because many fire-ravaged neighborhoods are still inaccessible. As of press time, it was confirmed that 56 LDS families had lost their homes and thousands had been evacuated. No Latter-day Saints are among the 20 who have died as a result of the fires.
In response to the great need for humanitarian assistance, the Church opened the doors of its storehouses in Southern California to other relief agencies and invited them to take commodities they needed.
As of Oct. 30, more than 722,000 acres and 2,600 homes had burned in Southern California, making the multiple blazes the largest fire loss in the history of California. Reports compared the fire-scorched acres as larger than the size of Rhode Island.
Preliminary reports indicated that about 30 families in the San Diego stakes of El Cajon, Santee, Penasquitos, Escondido and Poway saw their homes taken by fire. The greatest damage appears to have been in San Diego County where fires ravaged more than 300,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,200 homes.
In the San Bernardino area, preliminary counts showed that about 20 LDS families lost their homes; others are likely. Hundreds more were forced to flee to stake centers or shelters, having only 20-minutes notice. Families arrived holding children, bearing house pets, and all the clothes and possessions they could carry.
J. David Peterson, welfare agent for the San Diego area, was evacuated from his home. "They told us we had 20 minutes to gather our things and leave," he said. "We just went room to room and gathered things that we didn't want to live without. Pictures mostly. It just forced us to stop and say, 'What's really important to me?' "
He said even the hardest-hit stakes are well-equipped and are doing a remarkable job of taking care of the needy. "Neighboring wards are adopting the harder-hit wards, and stakes are watching over their own, as well as their neighbors," he said.
Because of the large mountain and forest areas surrounding San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, Highland and Fontana, Calif., losses are expected to continue to mount. As of press time, large mountain communities were still unreachable by safety workers and communication networks were down.
"Flames are jumping 100 and 200 feet into the air, devouring evergreens as they go," said one firefighter. "There is nothing you can do when the flames are that big."
In Los Angeles County, miles of suburbs in the northern end of the San Fernando Valley were endangered by what started as the Simi Valley fire. The fire, carried by high winds, became known as the Chatsworth fire which threatened two of the largest stakes in Los Angeles.
The flames headed north and raced toward the largely LDS communities of Valencia and Santa Clarita. Fires continued to burn uncontrollably through Wednesday evening, Oct. 29, forcing the evacuation of many hillside families. But by Oct. 30, it was 40 percent contained and had turned away from neighborhoods.
Evacuations of five square miles in Chatsworth and Northridge were enforced however, and many LDS families in the valley found shelter in the homes of other ward members.
No LDS meetinghouses or other Church buildings were damaged by the California firestorms as of Oct. 30, but a wall of flame did approach the Poway meetinghouse, said President Stephen M. Studdert of the California Carlsbad Mission.
"I stood with a stake presidency member as an enormous wall of flames came straight at the Poway Ward building in the Poway Stake, and then it suddenly veered to the south a couple of hundred yards from the meetinghouse," he said.
The branch at Julian was gravely threatened by a rapidly encroaching wall of fire. Some 125 fire trucks made what was called a "last stand" very near that chapel Oct. 29. As of Thursday, Oct. 30, the situation was not resolved.
About 80 full-time missionaries served round-the-clock in Red Cross evacuation centers, many located in facilities of other churches. They were warmly received as a representation for the Church, said President Studdert.
A prominent LDS television newsman, Chuck Henry of KNBC in Los Angeles, was saved at the last moment Tuesday night, Oct. 28, by a courageous firefighter who spotted an oncoming fire "flash" which was threatening a television crew and broadcast truck. Running by the newsman at top speed the firefighter yelled to all to "Run!" and moments later the KNBC news van was engulfed in flames.
Brother Henry was overwhelmed by the act of courage and was fraught with emotion as he reported the incident live on NBC's network news.
Such moments of heroism are being
reported in all corners of the fire-torn California mountains and surrounding communities.
Remarkably, the El Cajon and the Santee stakes in San Diego completed emergency preparedness training just a day before the fires exploded in the region. Thanks to the stakes' preparedness plans, the near-8,000 Church members in those two areas were contacted person-to-person within 90 minutes, possibly saving lives.
President Kent Rex of the Highland stake in San Bernardino experienced his own brush with disaster. While trying to support his stake members in the hard-hit Highland, Calif., area, fire threatened his own home. At the last moment a massive aerial drop of water atop his house saved it from destruction.
LDS Welfare services stepped in instantly to help California Church members and their communities. Redlands stake volunteers were called upon by city leaders to man the San Bernardino Emergency Command Center and wards of volunteers stood in readiness to move threatened families out of the wildfires. LDS stake centers were opened to the Red Cross in San Diego and other community groups to provide response centers and shelters.
In San Diego, Charger Stadium housed some 5,000 displaced families and the Church provided tables and chairs and joined with Catholic Relief Services to make lunches for thousands.
In the Riverside area, the Bishop's Storehouse in Colton supplied food for thousands of firefighters.
Despite the huge numbers displaced in the Southern California area, the Church and its neighbors were in full readiness. Donations of food, clothing and medical supplies were provided almost overnight from headquarters in Salt Lake City.
In this week of record losses in Southern California, the helping hand of the Church and its members was felt all the way from the Santa Monica mountains in Los Angeles, to border of Mexico.
Contributing: Cray Carlson, Redlands stake media relations; Rebecca Bennion, San Diego multi-stake community relations; Rosemary Pollock, Ventura County public affairs; LeAnne Hull, Los Angeles public affairs office; and Associated Press.
