The normally lush green El Cariso Village fall colors, accented by flocks of blue jays, will instead be muted when the seasons change on Sunday, as will be the mood in the rural neighborhood eight miles west of Lake Elsinore in the Santa Ana Mountains that suffered through a devastating wildfire.
“At the top of the hill, all you can see for miles is everything is black, and there is not a tree left standing,” Kim Martin, one of some 250 El Cariso residents who live along the unpaved roads off Ortega Highway, said Friday morning, Sept. 20.
Martin, 60, along with granddaughter Ashley, 19, was on a mission to find a neighbor’s cats. Martin said she saw innumerable dead animals, including rabbits.
“The vultures were starting to circle,” she said.
The Airport fire, which blitzed through on Sept. 10 after accidentally being started a day earlier in Trabuco Canyon in Orange County by a public works crew, initially was pushed by high winds before latching onto heavy brush and racing uphill into Riverside County. The fire, which had burned 23,519 acres and was 62% contained as of Friday night, has destroyed 119 homes, Cal Fire said.
The flames left behind blackened ground and white ash, as well as various shades of gray debris, to say nothing of mangled homes, cars that burned so hot that their rims melted and other now-unrecognizable property. Some metal in the fire’s path took on a strange light-orange hue. Even the sky was gray on Friday.
Jon Hafey, 48, along with wife Noelle, 51, owns Hafey Farms Mountain Market, a community hub across Ortega Highway from the village where many residents have gathered to eat and commiserate.
“The words they use are ‘A total loss,’ he said. “There’s nothing left. The fire was so hot it burned through fireproof safes. Homes didn’t burn, they vaporized.”
Dennis Blietz, 77, a San Clemente tool and die maker, rolled through the village on Friday morning looking for his friend Reed Nichols, whose three homes and empire of more than 100 cars — many classics that Nichols rented to filmmakers — were now a memory as a result of the fire.
“Everything in its way is history,” Blietz said.
Blietz’s own restored 1934 Dodge Roadster — “I brought it back from the dead,” he said — burned up a few miles to the west in Decker Canyon.
Martin described a 100-foot wall of flames she saw as “hell coming,” but to say that El Cariso Village was wiped off the map would be an overstatement.
“Reports came out that El Cariso was vaporized,” Jon Hafey said.
But some homes, despite their property being populated by trees and vehicles, appeared untouched — even though their neighbors’ homes were flattened. Other houses appeared to have survived because the owners cleared vegetation and anything else that could burn.
A home next to the Nichols property, surrounded by a nursery that included scores of cacti, was untouched.
“There’s no rhyme or reason,” said Amy Puckett, a Cal Fire spokeswoman on the Airport fire.
Cal Fire on Friday could not say how many homes were destroyed in each area where flames swept through.
‘All the beauty’ gone
Giacomo Pagano was one of the fortunate residents. He was attracted to the green, two-story home at the end of Monte Vista Road and moved in in 2019.
“Just the serenity and beauty of this village, it was stunning,” said Pagano, 55, a chef who specializes in Italian dishes. “Very pretty, gorgeous trees, all the beauty, a lot of life.”
But Friday, he stood in front of his home and, identifying his neighbors by name, pointed out property by property where their homes below his once stood. Black ground and burned rubble were all that remained.
Pagano’s home is surrounded by a rocky landscape, and the day the flames swept through he hooked up a fire hose and doused his home until the flames got too close. Pagano lost only his RV.
His was the only home on the street that survived.
“I look at my house, and it looks like nothing happened, and then I turn around and see this damage. It’s mind-blowing,” Pagano said.
Moments later, a single blue jay alighted onto one of his trees.
Signs of a comeback
Ortega Highway, also known as Highway 74, reopened on Tuesday.
On Friday, few residents appeared present, but the neighborhood was buzzing with workers from electricity, water and other utilities attempting to make the area liveable again. The power remained out and the water was undrinkable, according to an advisory from the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District.
A water district employee drew blue lines on the ground with paint and pounded blue spikes to mark their underground lines for Southern California Edison workers who planned to dig holes to plant new power poles. Some workers wielding chainsaws cut down burned trees.
Others, tethered for safety, scaled trees to lop off the tops so they would not strike electrical lines if they fell.
“I feel like some of these guys would do it for the sport and not the money,” said a man directing utility truck traffic.
‘Faith in humanity’
Hafey Farms is normally a spot where customers can buy tri-tip sandwiches, beverages and about a dozen kinds of jerky, including venison, elk, salmon and alligator, among other delights, without having to travel long distances on the crowded commuter link between Lake Elsinore and San Juan Capistrano.
On Friday, the market was a vital participant and host in the recovery effort. Representatives from the American Red Cross and Riverside University Health Systems arrived to assist residents. RUHS employees brought toiletries, socks, underwear, COVID-19 tests, Narcan — which can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose — and information on mental health services and how to navigate the bureaucracy after losing car registrations, birth certificates and other vital documents to the flames.
Information has been difficult to come by, Jon Hafey said, because of the loss of internet and cell service and television.
Hafey was operating the market Friday thanks to donations of a generator and satellite internet service. He estimated he has fed a couple of hundred firefighters, “Literally throwing the food in the fire trucks as they were dispatched.”
Others have brought food and other assistance from down the hill for residents who have no means to leave.
“It’s actually given me a whole lot of faith in humanity,” Hafey said. “The kind of people who live up here, they’re kind of salt of the earth people. We have people who have lost their homes that are just here hugging people, loving people, doing what they can to help.”
Among those helping is Kristen Thibeault, whose catering business Nybll has brought up and prepared, she estimates, food for 500 meals. And not just any meals: Among the offerings have been brisket beef stew, Cajun pasta with andouille sausage and avocado toast. She also operates a nonprofit organization, The Patra Project, that provides meals to low-income children.
“People need some dignity,” Thibeault said.
Shane Reichardt, a spokesman for the Riverside County Emergency Management Department, said community members can help most by making cash donations to the United Way and Salvation Army through the website RivCoReady.org/Recovery, where they can also learn how to receive assistance themselves, Reichardt asked that people, however well-intentioned, not leave donations of items at fire stations or other locations.
Not giving up
Back in the village, Kim and Ashley Martin continued their hunt on foot for the neighbors’ cats into the early afternoon.
The Martins were optimistic, carrying with them cat food and bottles of water.
But there was little wildlife or domesticated creatures, for that matter, in sight.
“No kitties,” Kim Martin said. “No nothing.”
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