Garrett Keene watched as the Airport fire grew closer to his neighborhood above Lake Elsinore this week until the afternoon he was suddenly warned to flee.
As ash rained down, Keene and his wife packed up their three young daughters, their infant son and their family’s most prized possessions — a menagerie of dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, birds, tortoises and pigs, 46 animals in all — and raced out of their neighborhood down Ortega Highway as 100-foot-tall flames encroached. When the 33-year-old father returned, he found the three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot ranch-style home that he’d built from scratch reduced to a pile of ash and rubble.
As the toll of the fire seeped in, Keene questioned why the evacuation order arrived so late and only by loudspeaker, and why resources from the air hadn’t been deployed to his neighborhood when areas in Orange County were swarmed.
“For 24 hours, we did not get a single plane over here, a single helicopter, a single fire truck. We saw nobody until 45 minutes to an hour before this was happening,” he said of his family’s narrow escape on Tuesday.
A car is crushed by a fallen tree in front of a home destroyed by the Airport fire in El Cariso Village.
The El Cariso Village — a Riverside County mountain community of about 250 people in the Santa Ana Mountains — was devastated during the fire. Keene said that the firespotting app Watch Duty indicated the fire was growing and headed their way so he alerted neighbors to prepare for the inevitable before any official had told them to.
“We were five minutes from absolute nightmare,” Keene said.
On Friday, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Steve Concialdi said “there were a number of helicopters, air support and firefighters — everyone was battling the fire to protect lives and properties.” But he did not have specifics on when or where exactly helicopters and planes were when the fire raced into Keene’s neighborhood.
“Our hearts go out to anybody that sustained damage to their homes or cars,” Concialdi said. “Fortunately, there’s only been two minor injuries to civilians and 10 injuries to firefighters and everyone got out of there alive.”
Robert Lucas over looks a ridge after part of his corral caught fire during the Airport fire off Ortega Highway. “The flames were as far as I could see. Do I stay or should I go?” Lucas said. All of his animals survived the fire.
Days after the fire had passed through, scorched trees were still smoking with heat, and broken glass, nails and downed power lines littered the ground. At a neighboring property that Keene rents to a mother of two, the fire had blown out the windows and front door. An abandoned jigsaw puzzle was unfinished at the dining room table, and children’s drawings and a note in red crayon wishing for a “wonderful life” clung to the refrigerator.
Steve Mangino, 63, also questioned why the neighborhood wasn’t warned earlier and instead was left to scramble.
Mangino, a neighbor who also rented from Keene, returned to the area Thursday. As he opened the door to his red barn, he braced himself for what may be inside.
“Let’s see if my reason for living is still standing,” he said.
His two prized motorcycles were undisturbed by the fire — a relief, and a sign, he said, to get a lottery ticket.
An unfinished jigsaw puzzle still remains on a dining room table after the Airport fire destroyed the door to a home in El Cariso Village.
The Airport fire started Monday in Trabuco Canyon and was caused by a spark from heavy equipment. It has burned more than 23,000 acres. Multiple homes in the El Cariso village were destroyed and heaps of burned vehicles and old collectible cars were scattered throughout the neighborhood. The evacuated area was quiet and mostly empty Thursday, aside from firefighters patrolling and the occasional resident who had returned to survey the aftermath.
Stephen Cuculic, 70, said that he had never seen a fire like this in the 48 years he lived in the El Cariso Village. The back of his home was licked by flames, but the rest remained untouched. Cuculic, a former fire captain, said that he was lucky; other properties didn’t fare as well.
Down the street from his home, a stairway and two entrance lamps was all that remained of a home once overlooking a small vista. Nearby, a 5.5-acre property was hollowed out; a pool and waterslide remained intact, but the area that once housed a large family room and kitchen was gutted.
Resident Garrett Keene stands in the ruble of his home that was destroyed in the Airport fire in El Cariso Village.
Keene believes the community will rebuild — that’s his plan, at least. As he walked through the rubble of his home, he pointed to what once was — the master bedroom, the couch, the kitchen where a now-deformed concrete island sat, the space where one of his daughters wheeled her tricycle.
He’s grateful that his family and animals made it out safely. But anger and questions remain.
“We were neglected,” he said.
