Fire leaves local destruction
Campus Times
October 31, 2003
Jane Curl, son Steven and neighbor Mike Stockham stare in amazement
at the scorched 40-50 foot ditch situated just to the back of their Claraboya
home. The Curls moved into their house around Aug. 1 of this year. For the
six-to-seven weeks preceding the fire, they cleared 90 tons of brush from
their yard. Their house suffered no damage, although some neighbors were
less fortunate.
Ten days into the largest and most destructive fire in California history,
the La Verne community is reeling from rattled nerves and personal loss.
A few miles from campus, 16 Claremont homes have fallen prey to the
voracious wildfires that now span five counties as the blinding damage toll
of the raging inferno continues to rise.
Close to home, University Trustee Carolyn Martin's Claremont home was
reduced to ruins.
"Nobody can control something like this," Martin said as she
marveled at a few of her belongings that survived the flames two intricate
glass statues and a pile of maimed silverware.
Martin's family built their Valparaiso Drive home in 1965. Martin's
son, Brad, a La Verne College alumnus, fought the fire until he was forced
to leave.
"A lot of memories in this house," Brad Martin said as he
took a break from digging through the ashes; his mother was making a laundry
list of possessions for her insurance claim.
At around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, Brad Martin watched as these remembrances
were engulfed in flames.
Several other members of the ULV family were displaced or disturbed
by the fires, with most of those evacuated able to return to their homes
Monday.
English Professor Bill Cook has been kept away from his Crestline home
in the San Bernardino mountains all week, as the fires turned north heading
for those communities by Monday.
Cook, sporting a wardrobe noticeably less formal this week, has been
staying with his family at the Ontario Airport Hilton while under evacuation
orders from their home.
"I don't know if it's there or not, they won't tell me," he
said. "I only took a couple pairs of jeans and some Dockers, thinking
I would only be down for a couple of days. When you're leaving under these
circumstances, you think more about the things you just can't replace."
The Claraboya abode of President Stephen Morgan although dangerously
close to the flames suffered no damage.
In the more than 725,000 acres of fires from Simi Valley
to San Bernardino south to San Diego at least 2,600 homes have been
destroyed and at least 20 lives have been lost since the first plumes of
smoke climbed into the sky above Fontana 10 days ago. With a quartet of
wildfires still burning out-of-control across Southern California, those
numbers are expected to increase.
Along with the 16 homes destroyed in Claremont, an offshoot of Fontana's
so-called Grand Prix fire damaged an additional 13 residences there.
In total, 3,000 acres in and around Claremont were destroyed, said city
spokesman Mike Maxfield.
The fire burned capriciously through Claraboya, an upscale neighborhood
in the Claremont hills, sparing some homes, while randomly reducing others
to fuming piles.
"I don't know how it picked these homes," said Mike Stockham,
whose house saw little damage besides a few burns on the roof and a swimming
pool murky with ash.
It was more than whim or fortune that saved some residences.
In the six-to-seven weeks preceding the wildfires, Jim Curl and his
wife, Jane, had cleared more than 90 tons of brush from their side and back
yards, an effort that probably saved their home.
"It didn't have anything to burn here," Jane Curl said.
Stockham's next-door neighbor Patrick Leier and his wife Tobie had also
recently cleared a considerable amount of brush from their backyard. The
wildfire charred homes just above and below Leier's but left his alone.
"If we didn't have the chaparral removed, this house wouldn't be
here," Leier said.
Leier likened the fire to plasma in that it flowed through houses and
yards, bouncing off anything it couldn't burn and moving on as quickly as
it came.
The Leiers and about 100 of their neighbors watched the fire from Higginbotham
Park, saying the mood of the unusual gathering was "more disbelief
than anything."
According to the majority of Claraboya residents, watching the fire
wreak havoc from afar was nearly unbearable.
"It's a helpless feeling. At one point, I just wanted to sprint
up here, run past the police, do something," Stockham said.
"We actually watched what we thought was our house go up in flames,"
said Carrie Basham, Curl's stepdaughter. "We thought it was destroyed."
"Everyone called their home phones," said Al Cangahuala, Martin's
next-door neighbor. When there was no answer, we assumed the worst."
Nancy Warner, a Claremont resident who lives farther down the hill,
recalled watching one couple in hysterics while waiting.
"One lady, she was crying. She was evacuated," Warner said.
"She had her hands to her eyes. She was so sad. I just hope they didn't
lose anything."
Some residents chose not to heed the evacuation call, and stayed to
fight the flames away from property.
Rodney Hutchison, a Claremont contractor, said he won an exhaustive
14-hour battle to protect six homes on Mountain Ave homes he does
not even own.
"These are my friends," Hutchison said. "I have an interest
in saving these houses."
According to Hutchison, fire crews extended every effort to protect
homes that were burning, but the other major fires in Southern California
had stretched their numbers thin.
"They were fighting it with everything they have," he said
of the home that was destroyed next door despite a three-hour battle. "This
thing came up here like a chimney, with a wall of flame 75-feet high."
Curl helped two firefighters douse flames in his backyard. Afterwards
he went across the street to Stockham's house and put out flames beside
his house.
"The reason we have a house today is our neighbor," Stockham
said.
Amateur firefighters had to make do with what was available. Water service
is provided by Southern California Water Company, which uses electric pumps
to get water to the hillside residents.
"We were up here right away with backup generators," said
Drew Williams, a water company employee making rounds in Claraboya on Monday.
"You have to be mindful of the water pressure up here," Hutchison
said.
Alternating between shoveling out impromptu fire-breaks and manning
garden hoses, he turned off the hose regularly to free up water pressure
for others.
Claraboya residents returning to their homes Monday were welcomed back
to a changed neighborhood. The Curls stood in their backyard and stared
in awe at a deep, charred ravine at their feet. Since moving there in this
summer, the Curls thought the bamboo-choked gully was only a shallow ditch.
In fact, the fire ravaged so much foliage, the neighborhood was almost unrecognizable
to its residents.
"I'm seeing homes that I haven't seen before," Stockham said.
