Everyone in San Diego County knew those hot October “Santa Ana” winds would come. But even in a drought year, few could have predicated the extent and intensity of the fires that began to burn on Sunday, Oct. 22. Hadn’t we seen the worst with the Cedar fires in 2003? Apparently not.

The last of the eight fires that burned through much of San Diego County was not fully contained until Nov. 9. In those 19 days, 386,000 acres burned, 1,751 homes were destroyed along with hundreds of other structures and automobiles, ten people lost their lives and more than 515,000 people were evacuated from 346,000 homes — nearly one in every six San Diego County residences.

While our water-bordered community escaped actual fire, it did not remain untouched. Coronado came to the rescue of its fellow county residents in oh, so many ways.

Fire and Police Swing into Action

One might think that being a Coronado firefighter means your work is confined to fires and medical emergencies that occur here in our relatively sheltered “island” community.

But anyone holding that thought may have been quickly jolted into reality had they turned on a news broadcast during the recent fires and seen Coronado’s Fire Chief Kim Raddatz being interviewed as the chief spokesperson for local fire departments throughout San Diego County.

Chief Raddatz, with 31 years in fire protection, the most recent seven years in Coronado, also has more than 15 years in advanced “National Overhead Team” training, meaning, he is trained to oversee operations in national disasters. Raddatz has been on the scene of many a hurricane, flood and was on the oversight team for the Yellowstone wildfires.

In the recent San Diego fire storms, Chief Raddatz began a shift as a Zone Coordinator for the San Diego County Mutual Aid System, working out of El Cajon, overseeing 13 fire departments all the way from the Viejas Indian Reservation to the Coronado coast, the Mexican border to Ramona. In this position, Raddatz coordinated strike-team resources to fight the wildfires without stripping the ability of local departments to serve their home communities. (When all county resources are at maximum capacity, the Mutual Aid system trips over to outside regions.)

One of the teams Raddatz called up was Coronado’s Engine Company 37: At 8 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 21 Engine 37, staffed by Capt. Jim Blinn, Engineer Mark Price and Firefighter/Paramedic Glenn Orr, was dispatched to the Witch Fire, the largest of the eight fires, joining a strike-force team of four other engine companies and a chief officer fighting structural fires in the Ramona area. The next day Engine 37 was reassigned to a strike force in Poway and then, following a brief rest on Tuesday morning, reassigned to the Del Dios area. Their strike-team assignment required heavy firefighting and their efforts resulted in many structures being saved.

After being relieved at the zone level, Chief Raddatz moved up to The San Diego County Regional Operations Center in Clairemont Mesa, serving on the Incident Overhead Team, where he was assigned to assist the overhead teams of the Harris, Witch and Rice fires. “Operations, no matter what the disaster, go beyond the fire itself,” Raddatz explained. “It means handling the evacuations, keeping barricades in place, and notifying utilities, among just some of the responsibilities. In Ramona we weren’t able to use pumping stations because fire had downed electrical lines; we had to provide alternative sources of power.”

At one point, Raddatz had been working 86 hours on 5½ hours of sleep. And as the fires continued their rampage throughout the county, firefighters grabbed zzz’s in their fire trucks on the lines.

Coronado police officers also provided more than 800 hours of mutual aid to the San Diego County Sheriffs Department, assisting with evacuations and security of evacuated neighborhoods.

A Safe Haven

“It was a surreal couple of weeks,” recalls Pam Hammett, who called a friend who resides in Jamul when she heard of mandatory evacuations there. “She and her family were just heading to Qualcomm Stadium, and I said, ‘No, no, no! You’re coming here!’ But she protested, saying, ‘You don’t understand — there’s four of us, plus four dogs, four cats and two homing pigeons.’”

Hammett, undaunted, said, “Bring ’em on.”

And so for the next week, the Hammett household expanded to include both families’ pets, with the adults hovering around the TV and the internet, trying to eek out the latest news. “Our friends knew of an internet site that had a tower with a camera that made 360-degree loops around their neighborhood. Every few minutes, it would loop back to their house and we held our breath as the fire crept ever closer with each loop. It came close, but their home was spared.”

Like so many Coronadans, the Hammetts found the experience of suddenly having business-as-usual interrupted with the necessity to reach out to friends and sometimes strangers-in-need to be a bittersweet experience. “We loved the opportunity to reconnect with our friends, but it was of course such a harrowing and sobering time for everyone.”

And so the story went throughout the town — homes and hearts were opened wide. Hotels and inns threw out all the rules — bring on pets and even the livestock — Loews Coronado Bay Resort hosted more than 150 evacuees, a good share of goats, pigs and chickens and countless dogs and cats.

And no one even thought of price gauging. Indeed, most hotels cut their rates significantly to accommodate the families, and made available extra beds for the kids. Loews cut its room rates initially to $169 a night; then cut them again to $129.

Pete Baugh, owner of the Village Inn on Park Place, lost his Julian house in the 2003 Cedar fire. Now a resident of Chula Vista, he was again evacuated, but just stayed at his inn, along with a full house of guests.

When Donna Gilbert moved from Coronado to Poway a couple of years ago, she didn’t foresee moving back for a fiveweek “vacation.” But on Sunday, Oct. 21, Gilbert walked through her house and smelled fire and once outside saw thick smoke in the air. She called the police who reported a fire in Julian. “But I knew it was a straight shot from Julian down to Green Valley,” said Gilbert. “I knew, I just knew, it was coming our way.” Gilbert and her fiancé Mario La Schiazza began packing that afternoon and by 8 p.m. they and their seven cats and two dogs were in Coronado.

The cats and one dog stayed at Gilbert’s daughter, Paloma Pierce, in Coronado, while Donna, Mario and their Yorkie moved into La Avenida Inn where “everyone, especially Irene Nuzzo, the manager, made us feel at home,” Gilbert said. “The inn doesn’t normally accept animals, but they quickly made an exception for us. They were wonderful to us, fixing us breakfast daily and keeping our spirits up.”

It was in the parking lot at the inn that Gilbert met a Poway neighbor who gave her the good news that her home had been spared. However, “spared” is a relative term: smoke and soot had ravaged the interior and everything needed to be cleaned or replaced to the tune of $125,000 in insurance coverage.

Coronado was filled with visitors and yet very still, almost eerie.

School was closed and many workers stayed home to keep freeways clear for emergency vehicles. With most of the county’s libraries closed, the Coronado Public Library experienced unusually high use by visitors and those needing library services from other parts of the county, plus its spacious air-conditioned interior provided a welcome refuge from the ash-filled air outside.

Coronado’s Animal Care Facility sheltered several pets whose families had to be evacuated.

While perhaps less heroic than those of firefighters and police, workers on Coronado’s home front provided a great influence in preserving a sense of normalcy during a time when chaos raged throughout the region, noted Linda Rahn, director of the city’s recreation services. “The star that week was the Coronado Community Center,” she said proudly.

Free day camps were quickly organized by the city’s recreation department for Coronado school enrollees and to children of city and Sharp Coronado Hospital staff. Upwards of 150 kids were enrolled in the camps, offered from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

The Community Center became a safe haven for Coronado youth, a respite from the ash-choked air, and a collection site for much needed supplies to aid evacuation centers throughout the county. With every square foot bubbling with activity and functioning at 100 percent capacity, the Community Center showed what it was really made of during this week of challenges and unrest.

The Nautilus Banquet Room became the camp group area and movie theater, the gymnasium became the park and playground, and the classrooms were filled with children creating art and learning new games. “Seeing the community come together in support of one another, and realizing the capabilities of the Community Center to provide a safe place to gather and play has been as fulfilling as anything I have seen in my professional career,” said Rahn. “Coronado, you deserve to be proud!”

Donations by the Truckload

At the suggestion of Mayor Tom Smisek, the city organized a collection site at the Community Center on Tuesday, Oct. 23. The two-day collection netted more than 10 truckloads totaling more than 25,000 pounds of donated items including food and drink, toiletries, paper products and household items. Deliveries were made to Qualcomm Stadium, the San Diego Food Bank, Father Joe’s St. Vincent de Paul Center and to the San Pasqual Academy, a residential educational facility for county foster children, which had several of its auxiliary residential units and grounds destroyed. Staff from the city’s Public Services department set up the site, made the deliveries and worked with Recreation Department and City Hall staff, as well as volunteers from the Police Department’s Senior Volunteer Program, CERT (Coronado Emergency Response Team) and community volunteers who dropped by at the collection site.

Meanwhile, Coronado High School students mobilized to collect food, with a drop-off site set up outside the high school gym. “They collected a lot of food — and clothing,” said Police Commander Mike Lawton, who noted the police helped the school patrol the dropoff site.

Sue and Dave Gillingham have a holiday tradition; rather than exchanging gifts with Dave’s five brothers and sisters, the siblings each year find a local cause and donate funds and merchandise to meet the need. This year, one of the Gillinghams identified a family residing in Jamul — a single mother employed as a school bus driver with two children, her father and mentally disabled uncle — all living under one roof. That is, until their house was destroyed in the firestorm, as was a rental unit that provided extra income for the family. The Gillinghams provided funds, gift cards and loving support to help the family reestablish their lives. Then Sue happened to mention the project to members of her Soroptimist Club. “I didn’t even ask them for anything, but they came forth with more donations and another $800,” she said. “They were unbelievable, but then, I always knew that about them.”

Meanwhile, Cays resident Donna Patrick put out another call for help for a friend of her daughter’s who had lost a home in Rancho Bernardo. “I put a note up at Curves that a single mom and her two boys had lost their home and the next thing I knew all these donations came pouring in — clothing, shoes for the boys, shampoo, toiletries and a generous gift card from Curves owner Dodo Reed. The family is now renting in Rancho Bernardo, with insurance money coming to their rescue, but the immediate assistance was sorely needed and appreciated.”

Service clubs and churches similarly began organizing collections. Rotarians collected scores of donations for San Pasqual Academy, while Rotarian Jerry Winter has headed up a campaign drive which has raised more than $6,000 (and rising). This spring, on “Rotarians at Work Day” plans are underway for a joint work project with Fallbrook Rotary Club to restore fire damaged properties.

After last year’s fires and the 2003 Cedar Fires, is it likely that another firestorm could erupt in San Diego County? Chief Raddatz notes there’s plenty of land left to burn. “We’ve only burned 13 percent of the county in the Cedar Fire and the 2007 fires,” he said. “Plus, it doesn’t take long for grasses to grow back.”

“It’s going to happen again,” Raddatz readily acknowledges but says that damage to homes and structures can be reduced through an aggressive program of fire management. “We need an active vegetation management program throughout the county. That means using ornamental vegetation that is fire resistant — anything that stays green year-round is usually a good choice — and not placing trees against housing.”

The second element is mandating fire resistant building structures.

The winds will come, Raddatz predicts, and aircraft — no matter what their availability and readiness factor — won’t be able to fly over fires when 30- and 40-mile-per-hour-plus winds rage

“I haven’t seen anyone beat Mother Nature yet,” he warns.