Wildfire History: 2003 San Diego County Wildfires (part 2)

On October 25th I wrote about the 2003 Cedar Fire that burned 280,278 acres killing fifteen and destroying over 2,800 buildings. When my sister who lives in San Diego County wrote me on the 25th after I had made this post sharing an article from NBC7 in San Diego, I knew that I had write a follow-up article. Unfortunately, the link that she sent me no longer works, but I did find an article on NBC7 in San Diego dated October 25th looking at San Diego's firestorm twenty years later, I knew that I had to write this post because people I love live in San Diego County and to let them know that I care. Twelve years ago I visited San Diego County and spent a day driving in the Ramona area, one of the towns severely impacted by the Cedar Fire. This is a good article with a nine minute video where an NBC 7 reporter talked to three fire chiefs who worked the fires. In addition to the Cedar Fire, there were two other fires that affected San Diego County twenty years ago, the Otay Fire and the Paradise Fire. I was very moved as I watched this video. I don't know how long this link will remain active. As always, I never know how long this link will be active. I was unable to embed the video, so I hope that you go the link that I referred to above to watch this video.

The report from NBC 7 includes some stats for the three fires, I have always mentioned the Cedar Fire. The Paradise Fire burned 56,700 acres, killing two, 413 structures were lost. The Otay Mesa fire burned 46,291 acres, and six structures were lost. In the time since. there have been changes to how wildfires are fought, the NBC7 reports states that "because of the Cedar Fire, better response practices have been put into place. It prompted changes in firefighting strategy that led to improvements in how crews respond to wildfire today." A little later in the report, there is another video where Fire Chief Ken Kremensky (Barona) "talked about what it was like to be one of the first on scene during the Cedar Fire – which was burning so fast, at times all they could do was help neighbors escape."

I end with some raw video, also shared by NBC7, of the Cedar Fire.

Direct link to video from NBC7 San Diego