Stories from survivors of the 2003 Cedar Fire (San Diego County CA)

The Cedar Fire, driven by Santa Anna winds burned over 280,000 acres in San Diego County California in late October/early November of 2003. In the first 24 hours something like 100,000 acres had burned. Fifteen people died including one firefighter. 2,232 residences were destroyed, 22 commercial buildings and 566 outbuildings were destroyed. The wildfire was human caused by a lost hunter setting a signal fire.

The Cedar Fire occurred some five years before I got interested in learning about wildland fires and blogging about what I was learning. Memory can be a funny thing, but I am pretty certain that I remember hearing about this wildfire through newspaper and other media accounts.

A friend of mine told me about, The Fire Outside my Window: A Survivor Tells the True Story About the Epic Cedar Fire, by Sharon Millers Younger. It is on my list of books to read.

I was looking for something to watch on TV last night (Sunday, August 13th) and came across a preview for NBC's Dateline Survivor. The show's title was "Inferno" and the description told me that I would hear survivors of the 2003 Cedar Fire tell there stories. Not all stories have happy endings, one family tells of the death of their young daughter. I watched "Inferno" with interest because of my wildland firefighters recommendation of Sharon Millers Younger's book. It turned out that Ms. Younger and her husband were among those who told their stories about surviving the Cedar Fire.

I watched the show with interest because it gave me a view of the experience of surviving an epic fire such as the Cedar Fire. A view that I don't ordinarily get to see. Not a comfortable show to watch, but important for me to watch. I have a lot to think about, and expect that I will have more to think about after I read Younger's book. The two hour shows focuses mainly on the stories of some of the survivors of the Cedar Fire. If you want an analysis or after action report of the wildfire, this is not the show for you.

For those who are interested, here is a link to an NBC site with what I think is the full edition of "Inferno". Note that you will have to disable your ad blocker, if you have one. I had difficulty disabling the ad blocker on Fire Fox but was able to disable my ad blocker on both Chrome and Safari on my Apple Mac. I don't know how long NBC will have this show online for free viewing. I don't know how long the NBC I linked to will have the full edition of "Inferno" on their website. If Dateline NBC has uploaded the show to their Youtube channel (NBC Dateline), I can not find it.