All Hell Breaking Loose, Day 4 (Updated)

4 a.m.: I woke to a sign that things have taken a turn for the better. I can see stars. For the past three nights, the moon looked more like Mars, so red and cloudy, and it hurt your eyes just to try and find a clearing in the skies. We still aren't allowed officially to drive to the other side of the freeway that's in front of my street, so I can't just yet climb to a great hillside park to survey the damage from on high. But I will soon, trust me.

The local news coverage overnight focused on fires at Camp Pendleton, which is just north of Oceanside and includes a huge area of unspoiled land connecting San Diego and Orange counties. Evacuations of military families have been underway, according to online sources. And that section of the 5 freeway, the main highway throughout California, was closed in both directions overnight. The other hotspot when I nodded off was at the other end of the extreme north county at Palomar Mountain and the La Jolla and Pala Indian Reservations. This doesn't necessarily mean things are hunky dory to the south, where the Witch and Harris fires are still far from put out. It merely means things look a little more bleak (and there's a new news angle) in another section that's now on the move.

Thanks to all of you who've kept in touch and left such terrific and encouraging comments, e-mails and calls. They've really touched me.

8 a.m.: My appetite's taken full advantage of this disaster, so in an effort to restore some normalcy, I drove down to my gym at Miramar. It was still dark when I exited around 6:15 and as I steered the car eastward, I was in awe of the sunrise unfolding in the distance. Beyond the base, Miramar's nothing but miles and miles of rolling hills, so there isn't anything to block the views to portions of East County. Odd that everywhere else was still pitch black, I thought, before suddenly realizing those weren't puffy clouds but plumes of black smoke and that wasn't the sun but one of the wildfires on the march!

I hightailed it home and grabbed my digital camera, driving beyond the "barricade" on Black Mountain to reach the top of a hill. Unfortunately, Black Mountain itself obscured some of what I saw earlier, and the rising sun dulled the dramatic view I'd witnessed just 30 minutes earlier. The photo above is one of the better shots I took before getting out of there.

This park backs against a natural preserve (with killer mountain bike and running trails), and as I walked back to my car, I noticed all the animal footprints in the dirt area between the preserve and "the people park." Some looked a lot like mountain lion paw prints. Wildlife would never come into this area under any other circumstance.

12:30 p.m.: I've devoted the last couple of hours to a work project but kept the news on in the background. One local meteorologist said his wife went to the Poway Costco to buy supplies and discovered pygmy horses corralled where the carts normally are housed. Most major parking lots throughout the county are filled with refugees. Some mall lots have been converted into impromptu RV parks, with owners asking mobile pumping stations to please come and get rid of their wastewater before they overflow.

Water's the latest item on the public conservation list today.

Though evacuees have been very positive and very well-behaved, there's evidence even those in open-air shelters like Qualcomm Stadium are starting to feel closed in -- and they're lashing out. One radio program aired several callers complaining about preferential coverage of one fire over the other. Others angrily reported people taking advantage of residents' and businesses' enormous generosity and were looting donated supplies by taking boxfuls of food and water home with them. Officials have been asked in press conferences about this, and their standard response has been that anyone who comes to a shelter, regardless of their address or lack thereof, is going to be treated as a person in need.


One criticism earlier had been the local military aircraft forced to remain grounded until an official California Forestry Department (CDF) spotter could accompany them, as is their SOP. There just weren't enough of them to go around, a CDF spokesman said yesterday. That stipulation's been removed and more Marine and Navy planes and choppers are helping douse fires now. Personally, that's good news since it was the same turf war back in '03 that led to many structures in my former neighborhood going up in smoke.

4:30 p.m.: We're entering that tricky time in a disaster of this magnitude. Some evacuation centers are emptying as residents of early-hit areas are being allowed back, while other shelters are filling with people displaced by new conflagrations. Curiously, the ban on my suburb has yet to be lifted, even though places like badly damaged Rancho Bernardo to the north and Poway to the east have. My husband went to work downtown today and reported it was close to business as usual. We're expected to report to our office in Carmel Valley tomorrow morning. Our HR director reports none of the 150 employees lost their home, though some their friends and family did.

There are plenty of volunteers to care for people, but apparently pleas are being made for folks who know how to care for livestock like those horses mentioned earlier that are hanging out in shopping center parking lots for the time being.