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It was dusk on the last Saturday in October when Fire Captain Andy Parr turned up his two-way radio and heard San Diego forestry officials talking about a small blaze near Cedar Creek. A hunter had gotten lost, the officials said, and apparently lit a signal fire, hoping to be discovered.Parr climbed into his SUV parked outside the fire station, located in Lakeside, a residential area 20 miles northeast of downtown San Diego, and drove to a nearby ridge where he saw smoke far in the distance. In his 27 years as a firefighter, Parr had fought many blazes and wasn't too concerned about this one. "It was a wispy little fire that didn't have much life to it," he said. So at 11 p.m. he headed home to his family.
Deep in Lakeside's rural foothills, Larry and Laureen Redden were enjoying a quiet evening, entertaining friends for dinner at the house in Lake View Hills Estates that they shared with Laureen's parents. The tight-knit, gated community of million-dollar homes was two miles down winding Muth Valley Road. With its rolling hills, 100-year-old oaks and magnificent views of the lake, few places possessed such peace and beauty. "We didn't need to go anywhere else because we lived in paradise," said Laureen. Larry had recently retired from the local fire department where he'd been a firefighter for 35 years.
After dinner, the Reddens and their guests went outside on the deck. They saw gray smoke on the mountain ridge beyond the lake. "Has this area ever burned?" Larry's friend asked.
"No, never," Larry said. "Besides, there's no wind." Many times over the years, Redden had battled ferocious fires triggered by the powerful Santa Anas, but so far this year the area hadn't experienced the dreaded offshore winds. After their guests left, the Reddens went to sleep, but the smell of smoke woke them around midnight. When Laureen turned on the radio, there were no news reports about the fire. So they closed all the windows and went back to bed.
At home with his wife and three teenage kids, Andy Parr couldn't get to sleep. His radio monitor crackled with increasing chatter about the fire. "I got a bad feeling," he said. He kissed his wife goodbye and went back to the station to call in his crews.
Even though the wildfire wasn't anywhere near Lakeside, he knew that fire chiefs in the affected areas would need assistance. He made a dozen calls, but as it was late on a Saturday night, he wasn't having much luck reaching anyone. One group of guys had gone to the desert, where cell phones didn't work. He left them messages: "Come in if you can."
By midnight, as he drove north along Wildcat Canyon Road, the main access through the foothills, he saw the increasing red glow. "The fire was expanding much faster than I expected," Parr recalled. When he got to his office, he put out a second round of calls to his crews: "Come in. No matter what!"
At 2:40 a.m., Sheriff's Deputy Dave Knight was working his regular weekend night patrol south of Lakeside when the dispatcher's urgent call came in. Knight didn't mind working the late shift. He wasn't married and had no kids, but he had a full house nonetheless. He kept a menagerie of animals -- a horse, five donkeys, a sheep and a goat -- at his ten-acre property in nearby Jamul. Knight had been involved in search and rescue and law enforcement for 25 years. He had assisted with evacuations and medical emergencies in previous fires. As he gassed up his patrol car and headed into the canyon, he wondered how this blaze would compare.
He drove north on Wildcat Canyon Road, joining a caravan of official fire and rescue vehicles. Coming from the opposite direction, cars full of evacuees crawled along, bumper to bumper. Knight turned into one driveway and dirt road after another, shouting over his loudspeaker: "Get out now. The fire's coming!" He ran the siren, and kept the patrol lights flashing continuously.
Down one side road Knight saw a family struggling to load up their horses. He tried to reach them in his car, but the fire was moving too fast, and he ran to help them on foot. The woman was crying; she couldn't fit all the horses in the trailer and had to leave one -- the Appaloosa -- behind. "You must go now," Knight yelled. Down another dirt road Knight tried to help a man who was fiddling with the latch on a gate to get his dog out. "There's no time!" Knight screamed. The man kept pulling on the lock. Knight couldn't wait; the flames were less than 100 feet away. The sky was blood red, the air dense and smoky. As he sped back up the road, Knight knew the man would not survive.
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