San Diego Quotes During the Fires
What people said about the wildfires in Southern California:
- "It's hard to explain what it was like in there, You're getting hit with embers the size of golf balls, even baseballs. You get hit, and there's nothing you can do. You've just got to take it and go."- San Diego Fire Department Engineer Rich Marcello, 37
- "Here, you pull up to a house that is fully engulfed in flames, and you look at it for a minute, and you say: 'That one's gone.' And you move on to the next one. You're triaging. You're writing off houses so fast you become numb to it."- Dave Orozco, 41, a San Diego Fire Department engineer
- "We're still chasing the boundaries of this fire," San Diego fire Chief Tracy Jarman
- “We know not to sit and wait for a call declaring an emergency to begin mobilizing our forces,”- Darryl J. Madden, a FEMA spokesman and recent arrival to San Diego.
- "We have more houses burning than we have people and engine companies to fight them. A lot of people are going to lose their homes today."- San Diego Fire Capt. Lisa Blake
- "It's terrifying," - Donna Cuddy, 45, an evacuee
- "We're stretched about as thin as we could possibly be," - San Diego Fire Chief Tracy Jarman said. "We've never seen conditions like this," she said of the wind, drought and dryness. "That's why it's the most challenging we've ever seen."
- "We have all our forces trying to fight this, everything available." - John Langford, a spokesman for San Diego Fire and Rescue.
- "They told us to evacuate on Monday morning. Who would have thought a fire could jump the 5 Freeway and keep coming toward you? Now that's a frightening sight." - Steve Fisher, basketball coach currently at San Diego State University.
- “Anyone that is complaining about the planes just wants to complain, because that's a bunch of nonsense. The fact is that we could have all the planes in the world here – we have 90 aircraft here and six that we got especially from the federal government – and they can't fly because of the wind situation.” - Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger in response to criticism over the lack of air support
- "Clearly, this is going to be a $1 billion or more disaster," - Ron Lane, San Diego County's director of emergency services
- "I called my home and my answering machine still works, so that's how I know we're OK." - Rancho Bernardo resident Fuli Du
- ""We kind of thought when we left it did not have much of a chance," - Mark Davis, who lives on Aguamiel Road south of Lake Hodges after learning from a friend his house had been destroyed
- "The reason we think it is [arson] is because we found multiple points of origin ... Our investigators have confirmed that this is, in fact, arson. That's the part that I really can't figure out, to tell you the truth. That individual knew on Sunday when this fire started that we had, really, the perfect storm, if you will. We had the heavy Santa Ana winds, we had the low relative humidities, we had the high temperatures. And then for someone to even think about doing something as reprehensible as starting a fire where they knew the fire would grow as rapidly as it would -- traveling about three, 3 ½ miles in about an hour -- is just really absolutely unconscionable" - Orange County Fire Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion
- "There will be help for the people of California," - President George Bush
- "It hurts us to have those homes lost. It hurts us to have those injuries. And it is frustrating for us to watch our community be devastated by this" - firefighter Andy Menshek
- 'You never expect you'll lose it all' - Adrian Lucio, victim
- "There's no doubt that it's going to be converted to a weedier, less pretty, fewer species, simpler environment than the one we inherited when we moved here" - Wayne Spencer, a biologist with the Conservation Biology Institute in San Diego in predicting the future ecology of burnt forest areas
- "Pray hard for us, America" -Valerie Lennert, Orange County, CA
- "Oh my God! It's Armageddon!" - Thomas Joyner Jr. Moorpark, CA