Cedar Fire Comm

Bob Krysak: I’d like to welcome you to the second of our three public hearings that are being conducted by the Ramona Municipal Water District, fire ad hoc, Cedar Fire Ad Hoc Committee. I am Bob Krysak, a member of the Ramona Municipal Water District Board of Directors, I’m also the President of the Board. To my right is Kit Kessinger, he’s also a member of the Board of Directors of the Water District and over there is Diane Conklin who is the head of the Mussey Grade Road Alliance. This committee was formed by myself as chairman of the RMWD at the urging of the Mussey Grade Road Alliance with the purpose of security public input from individuals who suffered losses in the Cedar Fire. To establish factual representation of the timing and occurrences of the Cedar Fire who ravaged certain portions of our community. I want to publicly thank Diane Conklin and the other members of the Mussey Grade Road Alliance who were instrumental in assisting this committee since it’s inception and do so today and in the future. The purpose of these meetings is not to cast any blame or aspersions upon any individual or any agency, any assessment that comes from these meetings will be contained in our report which we plan on assimilating after these meetings, after interaction with the CDF and that report will be provided to all agencies that are investigating the fire and may be the subject of future action by the Ramona Municipal Water District Board. We are interested in timelines, stories of both official and neighborly assistance and self help during the fire or absence of those things, evacuation warnings, if any or non, and any damages suffered. With this information and the resulting report we can hopefully gain an insight to not only what could have been done or should have been done but what we can do in the future to prevent the kind of losses that we suffered in this fire both as official agencies such as the water district, as CDF, as neighbors or as ourselves in this community. The meeting today is being audio recorded for later evaluation and we will also be taking notes. There’s a pad in the back which we usually have speaker slips but they didn’t provide us any this morning so if you could write your name and address on a speaker slip and come up and hand it to me, please. You should have also received questionnaires in the mail that should help you either provide written information for this meeting or use as a model for your public presentation. If you don’t have one, there are also questionnaires on the back table there. We want to get input from as many people as possible. The last meeting was a little more crowded, this is a little less crowded at this point, but we anticipate people will be filtering in over the course of the next few hours but try to restrict your comments to fifteen minutes. Again, we are primarily interested in what, when, who and where regarding the fires progress, official response or warning, and assistance provided by others or yourself. Please do not be offended if we interrupt you with questions and dialogue because we want to be assured we have the information we need. At this point I’d like to ask Kit if he has any comments he’d like to make this morning.

Kit Kessenger: Good morning. Just want to thank you all for coming. This is the second meeting and, of course, in the first meeting we got, I’d say some eye opening information from the testimony that citizens like you provided and that information is going to be very helpful I’m sure to the agencies that are reviewing this fire on a regional and statewide level but it’s also very helpful to us because as directors of the water district, we have to look at our own operations and how those can be improved to better serve the community in emergencies like this and other times and I know that although I’m reserving my final comments about our water operation, water sewer, and other operations that we are in charge of until we get all the testimony and also talk to some of the agencies that were involved. I am getting an understanding and an impression of some of the things that we can improve in our own operations in the future and as a community. I’d like to thank you all for being here and for the comments that you provide and please feel free to speak and we’re all just neighbors and part of the community so no need to get nervous for any of those who tend to get nervous in front of a group.

Bob Krysak: We’re more nervous than you are. Diane would you like to make a comment?

Diane Conklin: Just for the record, Diane Conklin, 19412 Kimball Valley Road. I want to thank the Ad Hoc Committee of the water board, director Krysak, President Krysak and Director Kessinger once again for this opportunity to get to the bottom of the Cedar Fire in terms of what occurred on the ground. I have a four, five housekeeping items I would just like to bring up now. I wanted to bring to the attention of the Ad Hoc Committee as well as the people sitting here that the letter that was sent out January 7, 2004. You may have received this letter, it had a typographical error. This error has been picked up by the Ramona Sentinel, the actual total number of homes in Ramona, the most recent numbers are 190 homes were destroyed in Ramona, within the Ramona community, well within the water district. I think this is within the Ramona Community Planning Area because this was an assessment done by the county and out of that 190, 106 homes down in the Mussey Grade area so if you saw 106 homes in the newspaper that was incorrect and I think that everyone should remember that we’re talking about 190 homes, that’s a lot of homes. Secondly I’d like to say that the President of the Water Board forwarded to me at my request a list of the names that the letter was sent to. This list was procured through the county and it has addresses. There are approximately 120 names on this list and so we are missing some 70 names.

Bob Krysak: Those names are of people who live in the Ramona Municipal Water District, (inaudible).

Diane Conklin: Let me continue, I think I can help on this. We were going to send letters to everyone who had a home down, it wasn’t within the district alone, I believe, but nevertheless what I wanted to say is that the one letter was sent collectively to the Mussey Grade Village. Mussey Grade Village I believe is within the Ramona Municipal Water District and it is a place that has expanded over recent years. I think the total occupancy is 103 mobile or modular homes and I know that the reports are that between 35 and 37 homes went down in the village so that would bring up this 120 to about 155 and we have some miscellaneous names that are missing, for example, perhaps it was because that the letters were sent only to those within the district but the point was to get timelines so that we could find out what’s going on. I myself was part of this process so I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that we are missing names so I’m going to try to get people to the next meeting from, from example, Kimball Valley where we have names like [five names] and others who all lost homes. The third housekeeping item…

Bob Krysak: On the village, is there a way to get that list (inaudible)

We are working on that. (Inaudible).

Diane Conklin: We are working on that. We have a list of the addresses, I have that from David Greis but those addresses don’t have phone numbers and so what we have done is put out flyers at the village. Unfortunately people are no longer there so I think that what we’re going to have to content ourselves with is that if we have one or two representatives from the village at the Thursday meeting, we were supposed to have one today but she, her children are sick, so she may come on Thursday, we’re going to have to content ourselves with a sampling. We’re not going to have the full numbers representing all 190 homes. That is what we’re going to have to content ourselves with. I would like to say, however, I’ve discovered and I think that other groups have discovered this, fire victims are reluctant to come forward. They do not want to talk about it. They want to forget it. I called some people on this list to see if I could get a hold of them and one woman told me, who’s living down in San Diego, I think she was an older woman, that she could not come here, she would cry. She would not be able to talk about it and she did not want to talk about it. We’re going to have to content ourselves with a sampling but I think that people will be as accurate as possible and that sampling will be a good representation of what they suffered through. So the answer is we are trying to contact. The number three, I am just for the information of the group, receiving copies of all of the correspondence being sent to the Ramona Municipal Water District, in lieu of or in addition to personal statements made here at these hearings. And the water district is sending these to me through President Krysak, I would like to tell everyone here, please, if you are going to submit a statement, please put your name and address, and date and sign the statement because many of these statements do not have names and that doesn’t help and also I am missing some of the statements that I know have been turned in. My neighbor [three names] I assume they came in after I got my package but I know some of these came to the water district, they’re not coming back to the offices of Krysak and McNichols so we’ll just see if we get all of those statements. Also I will reserve as the spokesperson of the Mussey Grade Road Alliance on Thursday, an opportunity to make my own statement of course, and then present additional documentation that I think will be helpful to you including newspaper articles and so forth. Finally, number four, I would ask today that you consider setting deadlines, realistic deadlines for the Ramona Municipal Water District’s completion of the report. I’m not saying when it should be done but if you can give the people here and the people out there in Ramona who are reading the newspaper articles and the coverage of this, some idea of when you think it would be feasible for you to have your report completed, it could be three weeks from now, it could be a month from now, it could be two days from the end of the hearings, whenever you think it’s feasible and that would be helpful so that people would know that the report is actually going to be done and then if you could announce, I think it would be helpful to the group on Thursday, where the report will be sent. You may not have a conclusive or complete list, but it may, it’s good to have some idea so it would be the Governor’s Commission, whatever and where that goes. Also I’d like to ask you thirdly, in addition to the date of a conclusion or a completion of the report, where it’s going to be sent, how people can secure a copy of the report, what cost there would be, so forth, and where they should go to get it. Finally I also would ask, this is a fourth issue on number four and this is my last one, if you’d be so kind as to give people a date or time when you will take up the second stage of the hearings which would be, what we requested initially which would be the review of the contract with CDF for any possible breach. It would be very good to know if this would be taken up at a normal water board meeting and what date you may see that as coming into your agenda. That’s the final thing and thank you very much.

Bob Krysak: On the public hearing issues, no I won’t give a timeline of the official report because we don’t know when that will be, I can’t say that right now. As you know, we will sit down after the last meeting and will determine a timeline with your cooperation (inaudible). Regarding any kind of breach of contract, we haven’t determined yet whether that will be any agenda item on the meeting board. Again, we haven’t gotten all the fact, we haven’t made any assessments or preconceived notions yet, we will do the appropriate thing and everyone will be publicly noticed as is required by law.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible). With regard to the completion of the report, yes, that would be fine in terms of discussing it with us, however, the idea is that then we should like that to be made public, perhaps you could make it public at a Ramona Municipal District meeting.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Diane Conklin: It’s just so people, actually the reason I’m suggesting that is because people will say to you, me, well what’s going to come of this and I think it’s important that people be encouraged to come to these hearings understanding there is going to be a result and I know you’ve announced it but the idea is if there is some kind of idea, that a date will be set for the completion of a report, then I think people have more hope that a report is actually going to be done.

Bob Krysak: Well first of all, a report will be done and second of all it will be done as expeditiously as possible. We know that everyone is watching us investigating the fires and we don’t want to miss that. We will finish as soon as possible.

Diane Conklin: Okay and with regard to the second issue which is the consideration by the Ramona Municipal Water District board of the potential breach of contract with the CDF and looking into the arrangement with the CDF, I would just refer you back to the November 25^th meeting where you enunciated the steps, I believe that was the second step that you said would be under taken after this first step which is the completion of the report and so forth.

Bob Krysak: I think that is misrepresentation. There was never any intent to proceed in any particular direction. We will assemble the facts and determine (inaudible). And one of the things I have is (inaudible) whether or not CDF is our fire protection or whether or not we have a local fire department or whether or not we have a volunteer fire department, (inaudible).

Diane Conklin: Right, that does get into the larger question of culpability and I understand that, nevertheless I think that it’s important for the CDF contract to be looked into, if you determine at some stage in the future that you don’t think that it’s appropriate, we can always come back to the water board and request that it be done again.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Diane Conklin: Right, well we would, excuse me, I’m sorry.

Bob Krysak: A lot of issues we consider ever year when we decide to renew or not renew the contract and I (inaudible)

Diane Conklin: When do you review the contracts?

Kit Kessinger: Diane, I think we can get back to you with a date, when that’s coming up on an agenda.

Diane Conklin: Well under any circumstances except for the date to be set for it to go on the agenda barring that we would probably come back to you. Okay, thank you.

Bob Krysak: All right, now we’d like to start. I only have three speakers’ slips here; I assume I’ll get more as we go through it. I’ll start in no particular order, Olivia. I’m sorry, one minute, Mark you had raised your hand to say something, I’m sorry.

Mark: Thank you Bob, I apologize that this is just a big tangential but it may be helpful. I’m the chairman of a local group called Ramona Disaster Group Outreach and we have been compiling lists of people with updated contact information as they have scattered throughout the county following the fire. We’ve identified approximately 175 family heads if you will of the 190 that you referred to this morning and while we do need to protect the confidentiality of those people, if you do have holes in your information and do need to get information out, we do have a mailing list and we could assist you. Although we could not give you that mailing list, we’d be happy to do that. Also, I would just like to ask if there are any people here in the audience that are not familiar with RDO or have not signed up with us? If you’d please contact me and we could step outside, we’d like to know about you, and we’d like to tell you about the helping information that we do have available. So thank you for your time and I look forward to talking to any of you who would like to talk.

Kit Kessinger: Mark you want to give your phone number or just leave it at that?

Mark: Yes, we do have a 800 number that is not manned by a live person yet, we’re working on that, it does have a voice mail box, you can call 24 hours a day from anywhere, it is 1-800-559-5771. We do check that regularly and if you do have questions, comments, concerns, if you want to volunteer to help, any of those things, give us a call, we will get back to you.

Bob Krysak: All right, Olivia.

Olivia: My name is Olivia. I lived at [Mussey Grade Road]. My husband and I purchased the ranch in 1967. We lived there almost thirty five years and we raised our three children there. Our property is next to the City of San Diego, San Vicente Reservoir. My story involves two of my children, their families, animals and homes. They filled me in on times and happenings. My son Oliver, whose wife Olga and their child, [], live at []next to [Barona Mesa Estates], they have lived there almost fifteen years. All times are daylight savings times. At 4:45 PM, October 25, 2003, Oliver saw the fire and Olga called 911. The dispatcher said the fire had already been called in. []

Bob Krysak: Excuse me Olivia (inaudible), is there any evidence that, your phone bill or anything shows that those 911 calls went in?

Olivia: Well they said that it should be on 911, that they did call.

Bob Krysak: Have they gotten their phone bill that shows that call on it?

Olivia: I don’t know if phone bills have those kinds of things.

Bob Krysak: Yes they do. They have directly…

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible).

Olivia: Mine has long distance calls on my phone bill.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible)

Bob Krysak: Okay so 4:45 on October 25^th, Oliver called 911.

Olivia: Olga called 911. The dispatcher said that the fire had already been called in. Olga and Oliver turned on their scanner. My daughter-in-law has been deathly afraid of wildfires and always called me when they saw smoke and kept me informed. Several years back they evacuated their horses to our ranch and then the fire came through Kimball Valley and we were in danger but the fire was put out by bombers and didn’t get to us. Oliver and Olga have always been prepared for fire, they have a 10,000-gallon storage tank, a large swimming pool with a pump, generator and 150 feet of large fire hose connected to the big tank. On the scanner they heard that the fire trucks were staying at Pine Hills, were staging, I’m sorry, staging at Pine Hills and they also heard on the scanner that they were turning other equipment away from Pine Hills. Oliver said that there was one hour of daylight left when they saw and reported the fire at 4:45 PM. When they saw the fire they called me and at 6:00 PM they called me again and Oliver said he’d come and get my three horse trailer and alerted me to stand by. He came at 9:00 PM and took the three-horse trailer. At 11:00 PM he called and told me to get my two-horse trailer hitched and come over. I got over to [Barona Mesa] the fire was close and we couldn’t load the horses. Olga, the baby, two dogs and three cats evacuated to my ranch at the end of Mussey Grade. At 12:30 AM on Sunday they left [Barona Mesa], Sunday morning. My daughter, Oprah, who lived at [SDCE] had been with me at a party at the ranch, at the Sue’s.. Sue & family are my caretakers who lived on the ranch for eleven years. Oprah had evacuated her dog from her ranch, I can’t remember when and had been with us to drive vehicles and help us in the ordeal. I left [Barona Mesa] Oliver stayed at [Barona Mesa]and tried to get animal rescue to help him, no one responded and the fire was coming fast. He turned his horses loose and left going through ninety feet of fifty-foot high flames on either side of the road. He said he saw approximately thirty five trucks at the Casey Tibbs Western Center at San Diego Country Estates doing nothing.

Bob Krysak: Did he say what time it was?

Olivia: When he left, the time was 2:30 or 3:00 AM, he wasn’t sure. When Oliver left his home and he told me that not one emergency vehicle told him to evacuate and there was no assistance, whatsoever, at his house. Back at my ranch I had been in touch with Diane Conklin because her house had a strategic view and she could see that the fire was coming up close. My house is in a canyon, in the meantime, a family of two, their two horses and two dogs who were friends and neighbors of Oliver from Barona Mesa evacuated to my ranch. I asked Diane Conklin if we should evacuate and she said I should call 911. I called 911, I can’t remember what time and they said there was no need for Mussey Grade to evacuate. When Oliver arrived at my ranch he was sure his house had burned down, I was devastated and discouraged. When other fires threatened us we had six or seven different fire companies parked on our road and one truck parked next to our house. This fire, nothing, no help, no warnings, nothing. Olga, the baby with two dogs and cats left to go to a friends house in town, they wouldn’t stay. They knew from past experience that the fire would potentially come our way. The other couple left with their animals. We were always in touch with the Sue & family and told them about the danger and said they should get ready to leave. XXX brother, sister-in-law and baby from Phoenix were staying with them. My children had to force me to leave, load up the three horses and three dogs, I couldn’t find the cats and there was nothing I could do about my birds in several aviaries. I can’t remember what time we left, maybe around 4:00 AM. I think I saw a police vehicle at the turnaround, they didn’t know anything. We left the steel gate to our ranch open and took our horses and dogs to the arena at the top of Mussey Grade and tied up our horses. Oliver and I went back down to the ranch. Reggie and Renee came down to help but I felt it was useless. We picked up photo albums and little else. We could see the flames coming up near the lake and flames on the south side of the lake and over my ridge to the east on Kimball Valley. I said goodbye to my house and the trees. I waited with Oprah at the arena and prayed for daylight, that the bombers would fly and save my ranch. A neighbor came by and said she was told that there would be no help. It was broad daylight, no bombers came, my ranch was destroyed by fire. We stayed at the arena for a few more hours and then we packed up the horses and dogs and left because it looked like the fire was coming our way. We evacuated to Pauma Valley, Oprah’s friends had extra corrals and dog pens. Oprah and I stayed at our friends on Highway 78 and the next day it looked like the other fire was coming from the west toward Ramona so we moved the horses and dogs to our friends on Highway 78. Oliver went back to his place on Rainbird only by getting through the blockades that the police and fire departments had set up and was able to save his house. He lost his pool house, outbuildings and fences but was able to save his main house. It took two days to put out fires at his house by himself, we were very worried about him. We got to Oprah’s house on Little Page and took some of her things and left and watched from Highway 78 as the fire came closer, the fire jumped Little Page road and burned down her house. When I got back to my ranch, when they let us go down the road, I had lost two houses, a guesthouse, garage, two aviaries, two sheds, (inaudible). Someone told me they took pictures of my ranch and structures burning in the daylight hours of Sunday, October 26^th. I am attempting to locate those pictures. As you can see, it’s affected my whole family in different parts of Ramona. Rainbird, Mussey Grade and Little Page and so we’ve been very involved and there’s one interesting article that I would like to tell you about. It was on a fire in 1984 and it was in the Ramona Sentinel, no it was San Diego Union, that’s what it was, San Diego Union and of course my husband was alive at that time and this is, I’m just going to read one, two little paragraphs.

While Fernbrook residents, the date was September 8^th, 1984. While Fernbrook residents were concerned about their homes and belongings, many seemed resigned to living with brush fires. We were worried at first until the trucks came said [Olivia’s husband] who watched the fires sweep by on every side of the road on the 160-acre ranch. When you’ve got a dozen trucks out there and all these troops it makes you feel pretty good. We wouldn’t want to be alone in something like this. His wife Olivia, it doesn’t mean we weren’t nervous wrecks when all this was over.

Bob Krysak: How many calls were (inaudible).

Olivia: I think I just places the one and I’ll tell you what, I had to, my daughter-in-law reminded me that I had called, I mean that’s why I talked to my son and my daughter to remind me, everything was so horrendous and a blur, I don’t even know what day Oprah’s house burned down.

Bob Krysak: You said that someone had pictures of your house?

Olivia: That’s what I was told.

Bob Krysak: Do you know what time that was approximately?

Olivia: No, I didn’t but we think it’s obviously in the daytime because they saw something and I have no idea and somebody, one of my friends told me that, and you know what, I said, I don’t want to see my house burning down. So I have a copy of this, it’s not too clear but if you want that you can have it.

Bob Krysak: Thank you. Pete.

Pete: Pete, I used to live at [Mussey Grade Road]. We lost our place on October 26^th. I don’t have a formal statement, I’ve kind of been there and done that so I’d just like to share some observations with you. I spent twenty three years in the fire service in Ramona with the old fire district and the water district and CDF and seventeen years of that twenty three years I spent as a fire officer in this town. Best as I can recall I went on about 16,000 calls and about 1,000 fatalities in this community and having worked with the CDF I kind of knew what was happening and I knew it was going to happen. When I retired from the fire service some neighbors would come to me and ask me for some advice on how to protect their property and I would tell them I only had one thing to tell you, I’m only going to give you one piece of advice, and that is when you design the protection, fire protection for your home and your family, do it with one thought in mind, the fire service, the fire department doesn’t exist, they’re not going to come. Don’t do a holding action for six minutes or twenty minutes or whatever. Now they may come if the circumstances are right and put out the fire and do a good job but as having worked with the CDF and I knew what was happening that weekend is they’re going to send 70 to 75% of their wild land resources up north which is what they did. Ventura County, Rancho Cucamonga and then they put it on a no divert policy which means the stores closed, their locked up, we’re not going to send anything back which left a 25% resource effort here. If just a fire service attacked this fire, which means that you got a 12% resource effort on this fire. At 5:30 some fire official, as best I know, kind of reduced himself to a timekeeper and said at 5:30 this store is closed also, come back tomorrow. A few hours after that decision was made, there were people burning alive. So when I saw the fire at 2:00 in the morning, I heard my dogs barking, I kind of knew it was going to be over right there and then even though it was hours away. I listened to the radio, I knew they were up north, I know their policies, I knew the east winds were coming, we were making our phone calls and people were evacuating. My other half left about 7:00 or 8:00 and we filled up the trucks. I stayed a few hours more and this was about oh fourteen, fifteen hours after the fire and what I believe was happening, I never saw a fire engine, I never saw an air tanker or chopper or hand crew or dozer or anything like that and I didn’t expect to see it so I stayed till about 10:00, the fire was getting real close and packed a few things and left. I drove all the way up Mussey Grade Road and never saw a fire engine or anything, went to the top…

Bob Krysak: You said this was 10:00.

Pete: That’s when I probably left, yep and the fire was real close, it had come over the top of the MG camp above Mussey Grade and I kind of watched it for a while because it actually died down when it hit the rocks for about twenty, twenty five minutes and if they had had some air tankers, they would have knocked out that flank right there, I’m pretty sure of that. That would have saved about, I think about thirty homes on the MG camp because it came right down through there, I was watching it and it’s real rocky over there and it just died out and picked up again. So I have, I know some of the answers of what is wrong here. I mean having been in the business I know you want facts about the fire but if you look back over the last seven years of the fires in this county, Harmony Grove, I was on that fire. In fact the general manager lost his home in that fire. CDF was up north. A couple of years later they had the Viejas, Alpine Fire in January, the CDF doesn’t do January. Next year they had the Fallbrook Fire, CDF doesn’t do February. And that year they had the Viejas Fire it was the same institutionalized standard operating procedure so the failure all along on all these fires has been, in this county, the inability to have a rapid assault force capable of an initial attack to over power this incipient fires. Irregardless of some people up north, there’s no means of a safety valve down here that we’re going to back fill that 25% with other resources because they are the foresters, they are the wild land specialists, they know east winds are coming, they know everything I’ve told you and yet there is just a 12% resource attack and the end result was tragic. The, you know when you hear about firefighters risking their lives, I can tell you that nobody risks the lives of firefighters more than the fire service. They were expecting to fight this fire with just 25% back up, who’s putting their lives at risk? But the issue is whether the fire service was putting our lives at risk with their policies; they are institutionalized response, a system that they don’t want to change. Then unfortunately what happens after this fire and it’s just a reality is that the profit sharing on the fire is unbelievable, but that’s another issue. I really didn’t expect a response from the CDF and why would they respond to my house when they’ve been unresponsive all along. We’ve complained to this board, we’ve come to this board, we’ve complained to the CDF about our coverage in this community. Two years ago we came here and we tried to tell the board here that we were concerned about the risk down on Mussey Grade Road. We didn’t need Steve Delgadio [Ramona Fire Marshall], we’re at risk, we know there’s a risk. We were concerned about the risk becoming greater by the CDF policies in the water district. One of the problems we had was our fire engine, not our fire. Station 82 engine is constantly being confiscated by the CDF to go to the Ramona Air Base which leaves us unprotected. The only reason they send that, our local fire engine, to the airbase is for legal protection. It’s not there for fire protection. They are required by the FAA to have a crash fire rescue at the airbase and the problem is that the U.S. Forest Service is required to have it there, they’re Department of Agriculture, they try to get a crash fire from the federal fire fighters, the Department of Defense, there’s no linkage there and so they don’t get a crash fire rescue normally. The problem is they know every year they’re going to have a fire season, they’re going to know they’re going to need a crash fire rescue there but they don’t take steps to do it, they just take Station 82’s engine, bring it to the airport where they are committed to stay, this is done in the middle of the day, in the middle of fire season and they don’t back fill that station. It also removes our ability to even get oxygen or medical attention in an appropriate timeline. So once again we’re in a situation where, and I used to be on that engine for years, they used to send me to the airport, even under protest, who’s putting firefighters lives at risk. They send an engine to the airbase which is an inappropriate engine, with no proximity here, no foam, if the pilots crash we’re not going to be able to do anything to save them and at the same time Mussey Grade, Highland Valley area has reduced fire protection. Now we complained and we came to the board and with all do respect, the water boards response was, well we signed a contract with the CDF so we don’t need to deal with these issues, that was the response we had. We went down to Monte Vista, we were complaining, we went to see Chief Miller, Chief Maynard, Fire Marshall Delgadio about the Salvation Army problem, along with the airport problem and sitting in front of us was about seventy years of fire experience between the three of them. We asked them to provide us with a code that allows you to expand the Salvation Army project without a secondary access, they refused to give us the code. We wanted to resolve this issue, they refused to tell us what code they were going to use. We asked them, they told us, Chief Miller right there was saying if a fire came through Mussey Grade Road and came through the Salvation Army camp, their plan was to put the 700 people there, the 300 children out in an open field, what they call sheltering in place and he said the fire will come in and burn around the camp, these are from wild land specialists, and we had about nine citizens in a room with us, Olivia and Diane and I looked at Chief Miller and I really almost blew my cool when he said that. I told him, you know the smoke is going to blow through that camp, you know the hot embers are going to blow through that camp with all those children on that hill, if you were to go out there today, that hill where they wanted to put the 300 children is a burned out cinder. The structures they wanted to put those children in are down on the ground and the reason they just fell into the Salvation Army trap with their billions of dollars, the Salvation Army doesn’t have the means for secondary access and I believe they just bypassed making them put in a secondary access. They had no means of evacuating 300 children so they did shelter in place instead. When I confronted Chief Miller about the idea can you provide me with one single fire department in this entire country that would allow 300 children to be sheltered in place in lieu of an evacuation plan, he couldn’t and wouldn’t tell me so when I say to you, why should I expect a response from the CDF because they’ve been unresponsive all along, that was part of my statement to you. The other problems that I have with this contract, you know in the old district, we were able to put five engines together in this community when there were fires threatening the community, nothing of this nature but big fires. The reason we were able to do that is that we had a reserve firefighter program and when the fires came the reservists would come in and they would staff the engines, they were allowed to drive, they were trained to drive so we had a little depth in the fire protection in this community. CDF doesn’t do that, they say reserves are not certified to drive and there’s also a union problem with that too. So during these fires, including the Viejas fire, they will take locally subsidized reserve engines and put them in state fire stations to backfill the air stations when their engines go fight fires. They take locally subsidized reserve firefighters and put them in state fire stations not Ramona. So these are some of the issues that this contract has and I don’t have any illusions that there’s going to be a county fire department, there’s not going to be a county fire department, we need one, we’ve got 50 white helmets running around, everyone is pointing fingers but my best hope is that this contract will be reviewed. My personal preference would be that the water board would not renew this contract, instead have Lafco hold an election and form a fire district where you have five board members who are totally concentrated on emergency services in this community. But if you are going to keep the contract, I hope you write in the contract making some demands on CDF that you either change or have, or be more responsive to this community instead of acting like an occupation force where we’re not really customers, we’re kind of chap and they don’t feel like they need to respond to us like our meetings with the CDF…(end of tape)

Pete: One last thing I’d like to say is about the paramedic program and the rescue community. If you look around at these other communities, you’ll see that they have what they call paramedic engines, assessment engines, Poway, all these other places. Ramona does not and we should have it. We should have paramedics on fire engines and get out of the transport business. The advantage being, if some kid gets smacked on Main Street and the paramedics are down the hill transporting some sprained ankle, what good does it do that kid? If you have paramedics on engines, they’re there in town all the time, they get on the engine, you have four people on an engine, even with reserves and you’ll better serve the community and save more lives. That system cannot be implemented under the CDF, it’s not in their interest to do that. They can’t send engines to fight fires up in Sutherland Dam like they take now if they’ve got paramedics on them, paramedics would have to stay on the engine in the district serving the community. It doesn’t mean you can’t meet your mutual aid obligations, it just means that we will be served better, it’s in the interest or Ramona, it may not be in the interest of the state but we will be served better with a fire district putting reserve engines in service and still working with the CDF, they’ll always be here, you still have your airport. So I knew what was happening the day we were going to loose our home, I knew it was going to happen, I told our neighbors. The other thing I would like to say, one of the conclusions I came to when I retired from the fire service was that the fire service does many things very well, they really do, one of the things they do not do well is be particularly honest with the public, they’re not good at that. There is a number of reasons for that, they don’t generate revenue, they need to maintain an image, they’re pretty, when it comes down to it, they’re pretty thin skinned. I would hope that public officials would give the fire fighters all the respect they deserve and earned but don’t give them immunity. Keep an open mind and they’re human beings like everybody else but the idea is that you know, we lost sixteen people, thousands of people lost their home and we can do better.

Bob Krysak: Art, do you know what time your house was gone?

Pete: Between 10:00 and 12:00 on the 26^th, it was right across the street when I left.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Pete: Nothing.

Bob Krysak: Did you see any bombers?

Pete: Absolutely, there was nothing there.

Bob Krysak: Never (inaudible).

Pete: I had evacuated to the other side of Ramona, I understand they made some drops up on top after we had lost everything. There is one other thought that comes to me and that was there was never any direct plane contact on my home or my neighbors. Okay, so (inaudible), that’s okay but what destroyed our homes was a blizzard of hot embers going horizontal and people ask why did the adobe homes burn and why did stucco homes burn. What happens is the windows break, the glass melts and the fire storm is coming and you’ve got a high pressure here, and a low pressure built up on the house and when the windows break it comes in like a blow torch. So you could get an army of soldier ants and put them around your property for a mile down to bare earth your house is going to burn so weed abatement works on some instances but what’s going to save your house is a fire service who is prepared to overpower these incipient fires in the first place, one, two is have a fire engine at your house and when I was on Harmony Grove we saved some houses even in that blizzard and have an evacuation plan and do what else you can, fire, whatever. So there are answers out there and when the fire service says that there wasn’t anything we could do, I would point out that there were fire engines left to save homes and there are stories out there of saved homes all over the place so that’s part of, if the fire service is going to say that they couldn’t do anything, they couldn’t do it, there was only so much we can do, I hope that they’re not saying that we can’t do it any better because they really need to get together, county supervisors and get all those fifty white helmets together and say look we’re going to put this special ops force together, just like they do in the military and when that red flag alert comes we’re going to activate the special ops and be ready to go and just hit this thing with everything we’ve got and then you try to limit the damage if you can’t do it so that’s something that’s been missing all along, whether they’ll do that or not I really don’t know. So there are answers out there and I hope that it’s not superficial and if I can ever be any assistance to this board I’d like to if you ever have any advice on whatever I know I’d like to help out if I could. Thank you.

Kit Kessinger: Thank you Art.

Pete: (Inaudible)

Ryan: Hi my name is Ryan, I lived [Fernbrook Drive] and I wanted to voice my opinion on the lack of help we had down there. We woke up at about 4:00 that morning. At our house for a little while and the fires come through like every year down there and there has always been fire trucks and CDF, they always come down, we waited for light to come and hoping that the planes would come and they never did. If it wasn’t for our neighbors and the community I think it would have turned out much more tragic than it did. Then come to find out that I guess the main fire missed our house and at like maybe 2:00 in the afternoon I had reports my house was still standing and just little backfires set in and it took the house out and there was, I guess the CDF and a fire truck at Kitty’s Café that just watched it burn and turned around and went back up the grade and it was pretty heartbreaking to hear. That’s pretty much all I have to say, we needed more help, no fire trucks, no CDF, no planes, the neighbors and the community.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible)

Renate: We had a sleep over that night. The neighbor called me and I didn’t wake up, I didn’t hear the phone, (Inaudible) right across the street, they came and knocked on my bedroom window, (inaudible) before I got my kids out. Got my kids out, we were ready to leave, we left at 6:00 and came back to get our stuff (Inaudible).

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible).

Renate: But they let us go back. MG Village.

Ryan: MG Village, trying to keep people from getting down the bottom of the grade.

Renate: Trying to keep people from going back down but they did let us go back, we got some things, we saw the fire was coming, we loaded up our things and we left.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Renate: (Inaudible).

Ryan: The insurance will only let us replace the house we had, upgrades and all that comes out of our pocket.

Renate: Where are we going to get that money from?

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible)

Ryan: No I heard. Somebody had told me that there was a CDF car and a fire truck in Kitty’s Café parking lot approximately somewhere between 10:00 and 2:00 on the 26^th and people were still going around trying to save houses and they told CDF and firemen, “hey there’s houses over here, let’s go save the houses,” they hadn’t burned yet and they said, “it’s a lost cause,” and I guess they turned around and drove up the grade.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible).

Ryan: Yes.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible)

Ryan: Yes, and drove back up the grade. No, thank you.

Bob Krysak: That’s my last speaker, if someone else wants to speak, come up to the mic, orderly one at a time, state your name and your address.

Sue: My name is Sue and I lived on [Mussey Grade Road], I live on Olivia’s property and we are her caretakers. I mostly want to say that Olivia has always been a fire preventative person. Her property was very cleared, always every year, year round and she’s always been concerned about that. On the day of the fire we didn’t get enough notice, really to get prepared, when you have a short notice like that you can’t do much. There’s nobody around to let us know, her son was keeping in contact with her because he was already fighting the fire up at his house so when we found out about the fire was on the morning of the, it was actually 11:00 on the 25^th, Friday the 25^th, we were having a birthday party for me on that night at my house and so we, her son called us for assistance to help with the horse trailers so we can bring a horse trailer to help him evacuate his horses so we went over there to hitch the trailers and he came down and got the other trailer and he left so he called again at around 1:00, 12:30 or 1:00 he called and he wanted the other trailer hitched up so we hitched up the other trailer and Olivia drove the trailer up. In the meantime there was nobody around on the ranch or down the road or anything to tell us what was going on so when Olivia came back and called us and told us that the fire was, you know, very big and may be heading this direction we should be ready to move and this was around 1:30, 1:00, 1:30 and so we were still waiting and everything?

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Sue: I’m sorry, AM in the morning on the 26^th and we were just waiting to see because we’ve had other fire threats around the area and they never seem to come over to our area so we waited for Olivia’s next call to see what’s going on and then everybody came down to her house, her son, her daughter Oprah and the other friends that they brought down with their kids and horses and then they decided to leave because they felt the threat that it was coming this way so I like around 3:00 in the morning we heard noises up at the gate and we went up to the gate and it was blowing very hard, the wind was blowing very hard and so we went up to the gate and there was a sheriff car parked up there and we asked what was going on and he said, “well there’s a fire over by Barona,” and so we said, “oh really,” and I looked around and I said, “that fire is right up over our, over the ridge there, it should be getting here soon,” and he said it wasn’t a threat yet so I drove back down to the house and I went over to Olivia’s house and I told her the house, that the fire looked very close and we needed to get out and so in the meantime her daughter and I were getting the horses back in the trailer that her son had already come back with them and so we had the trailers, we were loading the horses and we could see the fire coming over the ridge and it was close and we all packed our dogs and cats, whatever dogs and cats we could get, we lost one of our dogs at the time and so we got whatever we could, which was nothing because we didn’t have much warning as far as getting out right away at that moment so Olivia left, we left right behind her and the cop was still up there and we said well we are leaving too because there’s nothing we can do down here so we left the gate open and we left and then we didn’t see anything on the way up the gate, up the road, no fire trucks, no other anybody warning anybody else, it’s like it was dead quiet.

Bob Krysak: What time was that?

Sue: This was like around 3:30 that time and we do not see that other people warning the rest of the community to get out because we thought we were over, we were like getting out but we just thought everybody was gone because there was no other movement around, we just thought that we were the last ones to get out because we were the last ones on the road so if we would have decided to get out last minute we probably would have gotten trapped or, because of the ways the fires came in. I understand that we did take the risk living down on that land, we do and everybody takes the precautions to make it fire safe, you know because there are bushes, there’s bushes and trees everywhere you move. There’s no reason why we couldn’t have anybody down there to help us fight fires or save some of the homes that were there because some of the homes were like, there were areas that were so far down that they were able to be saved, they were opened, they were right there, easy to get to, it wasn’t like they were in steep, deep areas and I want to say I have a nephew that works as a fire, hotshots, CDF, fire department or forestry and he was fighting the fire up in San Bernardino area and at that time his crew, they were keeping contact with us on the phone, his friends who had cell phones and he kept asking us how is it going and I’m like, it is pretty bad, our house is going to burn down and he requested, or his group went to his commanding officer, or whoever he was in charge with and they asked if they could come down here, they were like we have to go back to our houses, our families are in danger and they said no, their responsibility was up there right now, we had no responsibility down here at all. He just felt so bad that he just kept calling and apologizing that his crew could not be down here to help everybody in our family. (Inaudible). I know a lot of people were in danger by the fire in the Country Estates and everything but on Mussey Grade it just felt like it was just Mussey Grade, you know, no big deal because there’s families and citizens were down there trying to fight their homes, you know, why couldn’t we have a fire truck or whatever fighting with us, you know. They were able to do it, it wasn’t like it was nothing they couldn’t do, it was something they could have done, try to at least to do something to save some of the homes, some of the people that were killed, you know and I know that we’ve lived down there for twelve years and the community here, Mussey Grade community have been very devoted and they work very hard to keep it that way so that it’s a beautiful place to be down there, it’s a family, that’s all they could think of is why weren’t they being protected. They took the precautions to protect the place in the first place and they should have deserved to have a chance. I mean, thank you everybody on the Mussey Grade Alliance for being there. We all know what they’re talking about, fight the planning boards and everything because we know the safety and like Pete, the Salvation Army, if they would have had all the construction, imagine the traffic down there. You know to get out and evacuate people, it would have been very ugly and you know, and thank you for Olivia for always keeping us in a preventative mode, always think fire, always think fire and she’s always been very good with that and we appreciate her very much. We’ve been living with her for almost twelve years now and we love her very much and we just feel very bad for her loss and our loss because she feels a lot for us and her daughter and for her she didn’t only lose her home, she lost a lot and she feels responsible for all of us and she’s a great person, she is.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible).

Sue: No, I’m just saying she’s involved with the Mussey Grade Alliance and that she is, she lost a lot, not just her home, the community is affected a lot and I just want to say thank you for giving us the opportunity…

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible).

Sue: Saturday the 26^th, yeah Saturday. Thank you, yeah that was it, I was confused. Thank you.

Bob Krysak: Thank you.

Thomas: My name is Thomas, I live at [Fernbrook]. We are one of the fortunate ones, the group that still remains there so we are all thankful for that. Unfortunately I can’t say it’s as a result of any efforts by the fire department, it just happened to be that we’re very fortunate. We were woken up by our neighbors at about 4:00 in the morning on Sunday, gathered our belongings, put them in the van and waited for the fire to get a little closer before we actually evacuated. I got my family out about 7:00 that morning and I went back to gather the pets, the family was safe. 7:00, I stayed there until roughly 10:00, highway patrol was directly in front of our house, told everybody it was time to go. So we stayed as long as we could, we made it. I came back that night.

Bob Krysak: You said the highway patrol was in front of your house. Were they stationary there or were they moving around up and down the road?

Thomas: He was stationary there on that road and I didn’t see him going down any of the side roads at that point. So I stayed there as long as I could and took the pets at that time. I came back about an hour later I’m estimating 11:00, 11:30, the fire line had been moved up, further up the road and then I turned around and left. It had been obvious that the highway patrol stated that everything back behind us was gone. He also stated that café was gone and we could see flames to the right, apparently it wasn’t accurate, the café is still there, our house is still there, little pocket. I came back in that night, I made my way past the blockade at the top of the road, made our way all the way down, it was probably right at dusk, I’m not sure exactly what time it was, I know it was getting dark, lots of stuff still on fire on the way back there, my neighbors property was, the wood pile and some structure, small structures were on fire. I immediately, with my neighbor, grabbed my hose, and I have a pretty good pressure out of my hose, fought her fire. The fire line came up to our house within ten feet and then when we were there we finished putting out the rest of the fire. There’s lots of embers and lots of structures still on fire at that time, smoldering, I’m not too sure at that time any were worth saving, they were already down, however my neighbors property, her house was still standing, had the fire went from the wood pile out to her wood shed to her house, she would have lost her house, my house directly next to it, it may have been gone as well and then it could have just carried on and possibly wiped down that whole pocket that is still there today so I never once saw a fire truck come down Mussey Grade Road. In 1998 shortly after I moved in, like two weeks after I moved in, there was a fire. They had like four or five fire trucks right in front of my house. We have a fire hydrant right in front of my house, I thought when I moved in what a great place to have the fire hydrant and in 1998 they were just waiting at that fire for it to come over the hill so they could fight it. Unfortunately I never saw any fire trucks come down, I assumed the bombers would be coming, you know to fight it as daylight came, I never saw those. We were just told that there aren’t going to be any fire trucks dispatched down here, that was by the highway patrol.

Kit Kessigner: When was that?

Thomas: That was approximately, probably right around 9:30, 10:00 at the latest on Sunday morning and so at that point it had become very obvious that we weren’t getting any kind of protection or support. At that time and I hadn’t seen any of the aircraft flying around so it became obvious that that wasn’t happening at that time either so like I say, we evacuated and left the house. That’s pretty much my statement.

Bob Krysak: At 11:00, you went back down at 11:00, 11:30 in the morning. Did you notice if there were a few structures that you could identify that were still standing that ultimately may have burned?

Thomas: When I went back at about that time the fire line had been moved up so I couldn’t notice any structures back behind there that were or were not standing, okay, there’s a curve right around, there’s a sign that says “Welcome to Fernbrook,” there’s a curve right there and everything past there I could not tell, I couldn’t see so I had no idea what was really happening. I was only told that everything back there was gone, it seemed to be apparent because I could see flames on the right hand side of the road, you know would possibly lead me to believe that everything back there was gone so I just turned around and left and I was eager to get back there that night after everything had swept through to see what was still there.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible) A lot of structures survived the firestorm but ultimately were started by a spark or (inaudible).

Thomas: Likely my neighbors house probably would have went up if I hadn’t gotten back there and used the house, or the hose right off the house, so I mean everything else behind me was gone and that was just a natural progression, it was very much on fire, the wood pile, when I got there.

Kit Kessinger: Bryan, it didn’t sound like you didn’t need to do anything to defend your house, it just didn’t burn.

Thomas: It didn’t, no.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible).

Thomas: I hate to speculate, the fire was coming down on both sides of us, I mean coming down to the, what would that be the west, coming down from the west and from the southeast was bearing down so it just, we’re in the valley there, it’s flat, perhaps the winds didn’t get just right and I would hate to speculate why, I mean we have a great clearing around us as well as some other people do but the way things were, that didn’t seem to matter a whole lot for a lot of places.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible).

Thomas: I never did with the highway patrolman being there, it had become obvious that they were aware of things, no I did not.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible).

Thomas: On Sunday the 26^th obviously, I’m estimating probably, well I was woke up at 4:00 in the morning by my neighbor, I would estimate 7:00 in the morning.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: He was only in front of my house as the fire line moved up.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible).

Thomas: Probably a half an hour, forty five minutes and then they would move the fire line further up the road as the fire progressed.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: Sure, he went further up Mussey Grade Road and when I left at roughly 10:00 and came back about an hour later the fire line had moved up, obviously he had to drive his car up as he was evacuating apparently telling people that they had to leave, they would move the line up.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible).

Thomas: No I don’t believe so.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: Yes, all those.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: Sure.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: Oh sure, several of the structures that are no longer there were there when I left, I mean they were still up when I was evacuating.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: That wasn’t accurate obviously, ours was still there and that little pocket but I don’t know if he knew from first hand knowledge or seeing the fire but one might assume, it’s ravaged the whole area so I don’t know if he had personal knowledge that everything was burned up or just was assuming.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: The highway patrolman.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: Yes.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: That’s correct, it’s probably about 100 yards up the road, that’s where the fire line was at that time.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Thomas: Sure. Thanks.

Ulma: I’m Ulma and we live at [SDCE] and I decided I should come and sort of verify some times because we were right on the front and I called in, I called 911 at 5:37.

Bob Krysak: Another 5:37.

Ulma: Well there must have been some other ones, I don’t know but the reason I know that is that someone from Northern California in the 911, they were doing an investigation and they called me later and they asked me if I had made a call to 911 and I said I had.

Bob Krysak: 911 called you?

Ulma: They are doing an investigation, somebody from Northern California was investigating the calls apparently.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible)

Ulma: Maybe it was CDF, I don’t know, anyway so I said do you have the exact time that I called because I had looked at my clock but I had already reset my clocks and so he said that it was 5:37 and I said that’s what I thought it was and so what transpired is that I was sitting at my desk and we look right out at the back, the fire was right out my window and I could see the white smoke coming up and I called 911 at that point. My husband had gone up to the water tower, the trail that goes down to the punch bowl is behind our house and he walked the dog up there and he had run into a young man up there who had been trying to call 911, he saw the smoke and he ran into a young man who had been trying to call 911 for several, he said about ten minutes and he couldn’t get through so that would, you know, push the time back probably. When [husband Uri] walked in I said, “did you see there’s smoke over there,” and he said, “yes,” and I said, “well I’ve called 911,” and so he took the dog because we heard the helicopter coming in from the pick up down on Ramona Oaks and so he took our dog down there and saw them as they landed and they were unloading Mr. Martinez to be put into the patrol car and it was still daylight, it was almost dusk but it was still daylight so I figure that he came back into our house, Uri did, about maybe 5:45 from his walk and then walked right on down there and saw them loading Mr. Martinez up. So that time, that was 5:37, at least from me they got a call but they must have gotten some from some other people and they did say they had already received information that there was a fire. The smoke was very white and very clear, it was just two little plumes, I thought, I said to Uri, “oh I help they get something on there and dump a basket of water on there real quick because they can get this out.” It was not black, it was just very early in the fire and then I think we’re kind of naive about fires because we’ve never really been in fires except for that we have, there have been fires that have burned out behind us. That one mountain just right behind us burned but the CDF was right there and they put it out and we just had great confidence in them doing that and so I felt very peaceful and relaxed about just going about my business and we had dinner and then we began to watch that nothing was happening and people began to gather up on our road, we’re the last road up there behind, well the last road before the forest and people were just coming up and sort of milling around, you know 8:00, 9:00 and we went out into the street and we could see the flames beginning to move and we just thought, well they must be going to do something about this you know and I always just say, let me know if I need to do anything so I feel very peaceful and go about my whatever I’m doing. About, I was outside about 9:00ish, going 9:15 watching, we called our neighbors because it looked like they weren’t home and they have horses so we were concerned, our neighbor wondered if we should get the horses out and so we called them and they were home so people just were milling around but I know an exact time when I went in the house, I don’t know what time but at 10:00 I looked at my clock and I thought well I’m just going to go to bed so I got ready for bed and went to bed and about twenty of 11:00 or a quarter of 11:00 our friends, the XXXX’s came pounding on our door and said, “you’ve got to get out of here,” and so I said, “well what do we do,” and she said, “well just get your stuff together and get out of here,” and so she started loading things up into her car and just different treasures around the house you know and left. Apparently I did never hear this but my husband said this, that there was a warning, they did come by and say you need to evacuate, it was not mandatory, this was early, this was probably around 10:30 or something like that, in that time frame because our friends came at a quarter of 11:00 and while they were there loading us up and by the way we do have a picture, they took a picture of the flames behind our house while she was there and my clock, they took down one of my old clocks and it stopped at 11:00 so that, I know a time that they were almost finished loading us up and we have that picture of the flames going all across that ridge there, up very close to our house and of course Christopher lives on the next hill next to us and so we left. They apparently came and said we needed to evacuate.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Ulma: No, it was a sheriff but my husband heard it, I didn’t. No knocking at the door so if you were inside and closed up, at least I never heard them but he was outside and so they said we needed to evacuate within twenty minutes and so you know we threw some clothes in the bags and our dogs in the car and at about, I’d say 11:25, we left, Our neighbors, the YYYY’s, we were all leaving at that time and I didn’t see any fire equipment, I saw no sheriff, I saw nobody and we were front line, I mean the fire was going to hit us first before it hit those houses all along, probably Christopher’s house burned first at 12:30, they said. I have a LA Times, I don’t know if you’ve read this but we had the battalion chief who was in charge of the fire here in the Estates came to our home, he was out showing an LA Times news, photo photographer the area and they’ve written a very comprehensive, it’s the most comprehensive article, four pages in the LA Times, Sunday morning that I had seen where I could get a picture of really what went on timeline and everything and so we had our home, we have a quite a bit of open dirt and stuff and the Estates has mowed back behind and around to the side, they couldn’t get clear behind us nor behind the YYYY’s house and I don’t think they could get behind yours Christopher, so we had an open mowed area and so our fire, in fact then we left and then we went to the other side of the Estates. We stopped at ZZZZ’s house, she didn’t know anything was going on and we stayed there and we watched the fire because her balcony overlooked our whole area and it just looked like it was wiping out that whole area, I didn’t see how it could possibly, how anything could survive and the flame would just move back and forth and you’d go out and we called and our phones still answered so we knew our house was still standing or the phone was still standing.

Kit Kessinger: From where you were watching could you see any emergency vehicles going out?

Ulma: No.

Kit Kessigner: It was just the fire.

Ulma: In fact this battalion chief, Zambro is his name, when he talked with us he said, well Christopher knows, there was no fire engines, you asked if there was one coming in, they said no. So we had no fire engines up in that area and we would be the first all along there, you’re on Cherish and probably just all the houses that are right there, we’d be the first ones hit and there was no one there and I thought why don’t the bull dozers start backfires or do something you know.

Bob Krysak: We’ve heard stories that at some point around 6:00 or 7:00 or even as early as 5:30 that there was a CDF truck out there, in fact watching the fire.

Ulma: You mean that evening, the 25^th? Well there was the pick up.

Uri: From the pick up, I’m Uri by the way, but from the pick up that was up by the water tank and those two guys that had called in on the 911, probably within a half hour there was a fire truck up there observing, I don’t know if it’s a CDF or, more of a fire truck than a pick up truck and there was also a fire truck, I’m pretty sure down where they were taking Martinez off of the helicopter, I know there was a couple of paramedic trucks and three police vehicles that I also think there was a fire truck there also and that would have been right around 6:00 or something like that. So there was fire, there was equipment there early on by not when the fire was in progress.

Unidentified Speaker: The fire was already in progress.

Ulma: So I don’t know, then as I say we left and we watched and we thought that there was no way that we could have survived and then we went into town and we stayed in there and we called a friend who we knew had stayed in the Estates and he walked over to our home and he said it was still standing so we felt of course that we were blessed but when we got back on Tuesday and you said divine intervention, when I left I just said Lord you’re in charge, it’s your house and it burned up to this, close to the post in the back of our house, to the deck, and it looked like God just said stop and it stopped with this much to go, no reason to stop, nobody was fighting it. So anyway, when we came back and we don’t have to face what our neighbors have to face. I think it’s very sad, I know this battalion chief, he was overwhelmed, he couldn’t get any help and he called for it and then when I read in this article that there was three hundred and some firefighters in the back country, asleep, because they’d been told to go to sleep and they’d fight the fire in the morning, that really disturbed me. I’ve only seen that one article and we have all the papers and I need to go through it where they were talking about the people from the other side, the back side, that were watching it and could see where it was and their decision not to act on it and so I definitely believe that had they dumped a little water on it, they could have stopped all this chaos.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible).

Ulma: This is the Sunday, December 28^th. In fact our backyard is pictured in there with my husbands arm and it’s a long article and it tells about the whole sweep of the fire and had some very interesting information to me that I hadn’t read anywhere else. Did you have this paper?

Bob Krysak: We have a lot, we do have it.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible)…(end of tape)

Victor: People lost their lives; I don’t understand how that could have happened. What I’m looking for, more than anything, is an accurate timeline of what happened between 4:30 PM on Saturday the 25^th and probably when I got back to my house, I think it was about 1:30 AM and nothing I’ve read in the newspaper is even close to accurate during that period. Even the site where it says the fire started, that’s not correct, it’s off by a couple of miles. The reason I know is, that if you stand in my driveway, it points right up where the fire started, and that’s the only thing that you can see from my driveway. A retired fireman found my driveway and parked his truck there so he could watch the smoke and he had a scanner on and I walked up to see who this was driving up in my driveway around 6:00 and he told me who he was and he had a scanner on and I listened to the fire fighters talking to each other up on the hill and I could testify as to what they said because I’ll never forget it. “The fire is two to three acres, it’s in an inaccessible area, we can’t get to it, we’re going to wait for it to burn down to the road so that we could get at it.” Nobody said we need helicopters, nobody said help, nobody said anything, it was just a small fire, it was just a little column of smoke like it was a large campfire type thing. I knew the Santa Ana winds were supposed to happen that evening, so did everyone else that watched the weather, I imagine 97% of the people knew this. I don’t understand how a firefighter can have a fire two acres in size, a lake a couple of miles away, helicopters sitting on the runway at Ramona Airport and not put that fire out. I moved here from New Mexico, I saw the Los Alamos Fire happen, all those homes burned for no reason. That one was set by the forestry people and there was a wind advisory and nobody could quite figure that one out, people said well that’s never going to happen again. Well this one didn’t get set by a forestry person but it got set and there was a wind advisory and the same thing happen that happened in New Mexico except worse because this is seven hours from the time this fire started till it started burning houses and there was nobody there to defend our houses. I don’t understand that. Okay, let’s get back to you. When did I first learn about the fire? 4:30 to 4:45 in the afternoon, Saturday October 25^th. When did we ultimately evacuate? I figure it was 11:30 because I took a picture of the fire as I left my house at 11:18 and I know that to the minute. That’s when the fire was within 200 yards, it had crested the ridge from our home on both sides of the gully there, the wind was blowing, not hard, but it was blowing and that fire could not have taken more than fifteen minutes to get to our homes so I think the fire arrived at our home at 11:30 PM. I think the fire department, according to their words, correctly arrived after midnight, well engulfed by the time they got there. Now there were these trucks there, watching, again I do not understand how somebody can watch a fire with those conditions who’s in the business of fighting fires, that can’t add two and two together and say this is a disaster if that wind comes up and to watch it and not do something. At least get the homeowners out there to turn their sprinklers on, to at least go out there and make sure everyone turns their propane tanks off. At least tell them to prepare to evacuate. That could have been done at 5:00, we found out, everyone kept calling, what’s happening, what’s happening and we were given, I was given, I can only speak for myself, I was given the impression that this fire was under control and they were putting it out.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Victor: Everything that happened, there was no alarm. There was no concern, there was nothing. People were sleeping after the thing exploded so why would they be worried about this fire up in the hills, it hadn’t exploded yet. There’s a wrong mentality in this whole situation. Nobody, nobody that was the expert in fires recognized what could happen and try to do something to prevent it. That’s my conclusion. Okay we evacuated around 11:30 as the fire was arriving at San Diego Country Estates, in contradiction to that newspaper article.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Victor: I did not look at my watch, my wife did. She said it’s 4:30; I know it was well before 5:00. The sun was shinning very brightly, the smoke column hadn’t risen it’s full height yet, this fire had started within the previous ten minutes or fifteen minutes so I would say that that fire started no later than 4:30 PM.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Victor: I called once because when I called I was given the very specific information that the Julian Forestry had been notified and were on route or on scene and that the Ramona Forestry had been notified and were on route and on scene.

Bob Krysak: (Inaudible)

Victor: Forestry, I don’t know, whatever, she said the Julian Fire people and the Ramona Fire people, Forestry had both been notified, were both on route or on scene and all I was interested in was getting an alert because the fire had just started.

Diane Conklin: (Inaudible)

Victor: No, she wouldn’t know, again the purpose is to ring the bell, not to manage the fire. I’m not the fire fighter, I’m not going to give them my opinion on what should be done, I’m just astonished at how little they’ve done when there was notification when the fire was very small. It ended up costing me my house, which we can get into that. When we evacuated at 11:30 PM, as I say, the fire had arrived at our homes, we left with smoke and flames visible within a few hundred yards of the house. No fire trucks were there except these two small trucks that I hear about, I did not see those.

Unidentified Speaker: (Inaudible)

Victor: That would astonish me too, how could they leave.

Bob Krysak: They leave at some point.