Red colored sunrays filter through thick smoke clouds behind the Smith Tower. Many students and faculty were forced to evacuate nearby homes. For more photos of the effects of the fires, visit these pages: 1 2 3.

Inferno Engulfs Claremont, Approaches Campus

By Jay Antenen
Staff Writer

As fires raged across California, Pomona students hunkered down for a week of classes marked by little outdoors activity and smoke filled skies.

Students huddled inside dorms as ash rained down on the campus coating cars and streets in a thin layer of dark grey dust over the weekend. Sporting events were canceled and some students donned facemasks to protect themselves. No college property was damaged and there were no reported injuries on campus Dean of Students Anne Quinley said.

The fast moving Grand Prix fire that affected hundreds of homes came within three miles of Pomona on Sunday morning. 66 houses in Claremont were damaged or destroyed by the blaze as it moved west City Manager Glenn Southerland said. In the Palmer Canyon neighborhood 43 of 47 homes were destroyed as flames swept through.

In all the fires did 20 million dollars in damage in the City. Southerland said the fire was the worse disaster in Claremont’s history.

Associate Dean of Students Mathew Taylor provided frequent e-mail updates to inform students of the changing situation starting Sunday night at one AM. Taylor reminded students that the fire never posed a direct threat to the campus.

Quinley admitted though that the College did not have the ability to evacuate the entire student body if the fire had threatened the campus. “We have lots of plans to deal with an earthquake, bomb threat or structure fire,” Quinley said. “But we never contemplated having to evacuating everyone. I think we will have to look into formulating a plan in the future.”

At times the fire got dangerously close to campus. Claremont Fire Station Number 62, located about three miles away from Pomona, caught fire on Sunday for a short period of time the AP reported.

“The winds blew [the fire] faster than we could react,” fire Inspector Roland Sprewell said. “There was literally a huge wall of flame behind the station.”

SPORTING EVENTS DISRUPTED

Class operated as normal but outdoor events were canceled throughout the week because of the fire.

The Pomona-Pitzer Invitational Swim meet was canceled Saturday morning after 20 events do to clouds of smoke. A men’s water polo match against La Verne was canceled on Saturday evening Director of Athletic Affairs Charles Katsiafics said.

Even after the fires passed events were still canceled. “The accumulative factor of ash and dust building up kept us from holding events even though the sky started to clear,” Katsiafics explained.

Students had the option of leaving campus if they had respiratory problems but few did.

None of the Claremont Schools were closed because of the fire. Other colleges in the area did shut down though. Chaffey Community College in Rancho Cucamonga and Moorpark College canceled classes on Monday.

California State University San Bernardino remained completely evacuated through Tuesday morning. A fire destroyed one temporary building on the campus and damaged another the University said.

STUDENTS ASSIST VICTIMS

Students organized to help victims with their time and money.

Brian Jackson ’05 worked at as a logistics manager at the Red Cross Hughes evacuation center in Claremont on Sunday for 12-hours. Jackson said he helped check people into the center, ran errands and filled out forms. “Basically I was a glorified gopher,” he said.

At its peak the center held 400 people before many were transferred to a larger evacuation center at Claremont High School.

Jackson described how at one point two construction contractors showed up and began handing out business cards to residents whose homes had been destroyed. “I don’t know how you could do that to people,” Jackson said. “It was very insensitive.”

Jackson headed to the evacuation center after he saw video of the fire on the news Saturday night. “I thought, I’ve trained for this; I guess I go,” Jackson said.

An anonymous freshman called Susan Park’s ’07 home in Claremont to see if her family needed any assistance. While her family was unaffected by the blaze Park thanked the student with a posting on the online Student Digester.

“We would like to thank you for showing support and care to those who may need it. Continue doing the good works, and know that someone somewhere appreciates all that you do for us,” Park said.

The Freshmen/Senior Interaction Committee collected money for the Claremont Chapter of the American Red Cross. Ryley Share ’04 of the committee encouraged students to “help rebuild the community.”

Pomona College President David Oxtoby said in a memo to students and faculty, “We all need to work together to support each other and get back up to full speed in the days ahead.”

CLAREMONT RESIDENTS “HEROIC”

At the Claremont City Council meeting Tuesday evening residents and council members described how neighbors banded together to fight the fire.

Councilwoman Sandra Baldonado related how Claremont Police Chaplin Harriet Guttmann worked courageously at the Hughes center even after she found out that her home had been completely destroyed.

Resident Linda Colwich described how her neighbors and her battered the flames with wet towels and garden hoses when the fire department failed to show up. “I am very proud of my street,” she said. “But something needs to be done to make sure everyone gets notified when an evacuation order is issued.”

Councilwoman Jackie McHenry agreed with Colwich. “We survived, we’re happy, we need improvement,” she said.

Claremont Mayor Paul Held said he shared some of the concerns voiced by citizens. “We can always coordinate better,” he said, “But with the time constraints I think the fire department overall did a good job. The resources were stretched very thin.”

PROFESSORS FLEE FLAMES

Sociology Professor Jill Grigsby awoke at 2 AM Sunday morning to flames, smoke and wind swirling around her north Claremont home on Limestone Road. A neighbor came by and told Grigsby she had to leave. “It didn’t look like an option to fight the fire,” Grigsby explained.

Instead of going to a shelter Grigsby went to the Milliken Science building where she spent the night with her dogs. She slept on an old mattress in Computer Science Professor Everett Bull’s office. The next morning she snuck back to her house to find it intact and damage free.

“I’m shaken up but I feel very lucky,” Grigsby said. “The entire event was very unsettling. I didn’t know what to do in the situation. It was much worse than a fire drill at Pomona.”

Politics Professor Betsy Crighton evacuated her home in Padua Hills early Sunday morning after a sheriffs deputy came to the door and told her she had five minutes to get out.

“I gathered my two cats and dog and headed down the hill with nothing else,” Crighton said. “Neighbors said that within two hours the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see anything.”

Like Grigsby, Crighton’s home wasn’t destroyed but five homes in her neighborhood were burnt to the ground. One elderly woman was evacuated by her caregiver minutes before her home went up in flames.

ARSON LIKELY CAUSE

The Grand Prix fire was started on October 21 in Fontana California around 2:20 PM by arsonists fire officials said. Authorities were looking for two young white males driving a white or grey colored van that might be involved in the arson.

Hot temperatures, low humidity and fierce Santa Anna winds contributed to the fire’s rapid spread beyond the San Bernardino National Forest to suburbs along I-210.

Jackson, who worked as a forest ranger last summer, said the US Forests Services own policies also helped fuel the fire. “The Always Out Policy is not a good way to manage a forest,” Jackson said. “If you put out every fire you get a huge build up of underbrush that is unhealthy for a forest.”

California Governor Gray Davis described the fires as the worst disaster the state has ever seen. “Thousands of firefighters and emergency personnel are performing heroic work on the front lines and behind-the-scenes,” said Davis. “This is an extraordinary effort that is saving lives and preventing even greater tragedy.”

The Grand Prix fire combined with the so-called Old Fire on Sunday to form a 40-mile front. At the fire’s height over 50,000 people were evacuated and an area half the size of Rhode Island was smoldering or in flames the AP reported.

Federal, state and county agencies responded to the blaze with hundreds of fire trucks and thousands of personal. Davis declared state of emergencies for Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties and deployed the National Guard. He predicted the cost of the fires would be in the billions of dollars.

“This will be the most expensive fire in California history, both in loss of property and the cost of fighting it,” Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, said in a telephone news conference Monday the LA Times reported.

President Bush declared Los Angeles County a Federal Disaster Area Monday; a move that freed up federal funds to assist residents in their rebuilding efforts.

Across the state 17 people died as the result of wild fires that burned from Mexico to the northern suburbs of Los Angeles.

With temperatures dropping today and an end to the Santa Anna winds the threat of fire is gone for now. But a new threat is on the horizon. Winter rains have the possibility to bring mudslides to the same areas devastated by the fires.