North County strike teams help fight deadly blaze; small fire quickly doused near Ramona

By: SARAH WILKINS and JO MORELAND - Staff Writers | Thursday, October 26, 2006 4:57 PM PDT ∞

NORTH COUNTY ---- A smoky pall from a fast-moving brush fire near Palm Springs that killed four fire fighters and critically injured another, turned what were expected to be blue skies here Thursday into a reddish-gray.

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Two strike teams of firefighters were sent from San Diego County to help fight the fire, which started at 1 a.m. Thursday, including crews from the North County Fire Protection District, Vista, San Marcos, Encinitas and Escondido. Ramona Air Attack also sent two planes ---- loaded with 1,200 gallons of fire retardant each ---- as well as 10 personnel, an air base manager said.

The firefighters who were killed and injured were from the U.S. Forest Service and were stationed in Idyllwild. Information on where they lived was not yet available.

Arson is being cited as the cause, officials said.

When news of the deaths reached North County firefighters, some of them said they were concerned about who had died and how. In addition to local strike teams up north, many firefighters have friends in other agencies.

"We've just basically gotten all our information from the news, and we're pretty much bummed about (the deaths)," said fire engineer Becky Barr at a Valley Center fire station. "We're discussing the things that happened this morning to make sure it doesn't happen here."

Staff at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection headquarters in Rancho San Diego sent out a list of safety precautions for review, and many crews took time to go over it.

Earlier this week firefighters at CDF's Rainbow, Red Mountain, Miller and Deer Springs stations in North County had been doing wildfire drills, said Capt. Jeff Lowe at Ramona's fire headquarters station.

As of 2:20 p.m., the Santa Ana wind-whipped flames had consumed more than 10,000 acres --- about 16 square miles --- in the Riverside County area northeast of Palm Springs and hadn't been contained, said Patrick Chandler, a spokesman with the Riverside County Fire Department. Firefighters were reckoning with the likelihood of gusts up to 60 miles an hour, officials said, raising the possibility that the fire could spread much farther and wider.

Ash was raining down in Southwest Riverside County and the smoke was getting thicker and fog-like at mid-day over north San Diego and Southwest Riverside counties. In North County, it started dispersing over the course of the afternoon as the winds shifted north, but got thicker again later in the day.

However, local authorities with the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District said that despite the thick, gray haze, air quality had not been significantly affected as of Thursday afternoon.

"(Air) quality is even better than this morning, it's not a significant change but it's not getting worse as the fires have grown," district communication officer Karen Jacobs said, citing information from monitoring equipment stationed in Escondido. "We monitor for particulate matter and ozone ... and meteorologists here are telling us the smoke is going up high, so it's not endangering (residents)."

Still, many North County residents expressed concern as smoke spread over the county.

"The sun is like, orange," said Judy Armendariz, of San Marcos, about 1 p.m. "It's really weird."

The smoke spread all the way to the coast, and even in Encinitas it created an orange hue.

Pete Lister said he left his paint job in La Costa early because of the smoky conditions.

"My eyes were burning," he said. "I can't imagine what it's like a little closer to the scene."

Meanwhile, a small grass fire behind Ramona High School Thursday was knocked down mid-day, authorities said, before it could be fanned by Santa Ana winds.

The fire, which officials said was suspicious in origin, was reported at 11:15 a.m. in a field behind 1401 Hanson Lane, a fire department spokeswoman said.

It burned about 2 acres, the spokeswoman said.

Some students spotted people in the area where the fire started, but they fled after the fire started, Ramona fire Capt. Bert Ramirez said. The cause of the fire, which started in the middle of a field, remains under investigation, he said.

"We know that it was set, but we don't know if it was intentional or accidental," Ramirez said.

Aircraft immediately responded to the area, but were not needed, he said. The fire was completely out by 2 p.m. although firefighters remained on scene mopping up the area for another hour.

Ramona Unified School District assistant superintendent for human resources, Joe Annicharico, said the fire did not disrupt any classes or scheduled events on campus.

Seventy-four students in the Nuevo Headstart program, which is not part of the district but rents space on the campus, were evacuated as a precaution, he said.

Annicharico said the fire did damage the netting over the varsity baseball field as well as some undeveloped land which belongs to the district

Staff writers Yvette Urrea and Adam Kaye contributed to this report.