The Big Fire
Witch Creek / San Pasqual: 21-22 October 2007


(Insert Google Earth view: Escondido - Julian)

Google Earth
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This is a view of our San Diego back country "Heimat": The Highway 78 corridor from the San Pasqual Valley to Julian. It begins with an agricultural preserve (including avocados, oranges, hay, dairy, sod farming, etc.) at about 500 feet elevation and winds upward through chapparal, oak woodlands, and finally to mixed deciduous and pine forest nearing Julian at about 4000 feet.





On Sunday afternoon October 21, 2007, a fire started in the Witch Creek area of San Diego back country near Santa Ysabel and quickly swept westward toward Ramona. A thick column of smoke blew westward, south of our location toward Poway, and we believed we were safe. The events of the next twelve hours proved otherwise.

Aerial View of
San Pasqual Academy
campus before the Fire. 		SPA Before Fire



As the evening of October 21 approached, I began writing a running commentary on the progress of the fire, sending out a stream of emails to family and friends. Afterwards I added some comments and sent it to my Lodi Academy classmates (class of 1953) for a more complete report, which I followed up several months later with the aftermath.