Pushed by Santa Ana winds through drought-dry brush that hadn’t burned in years, it moved faster than any blaze longtime firefighters had ever seen and eventually became the largest wildfire in California history.Īs it galloped west, emergency workers raced ahead telling people to get out. 26, 2003, some nine hours after a hunter got lost 12 miles east in the Cleveland National Forest and lit a signal fire. The flames arrived there unannounced at about 2 a.m. Visitors to the area figure out where they’re going via names painted on a giant rock. About a dozen houses were built there under towering oaks, built to enjoy panoramic views of rolling mountains by day and a carpet of stars by night. It’s the kind of place where people go for breathing room, to get away from city noise and aggravation.
That’s how many people were killed in a single hillside pocket of rural homes near the Barona Resort & Casino, off a roughly mile-long stretch of dirt road known informally as Strange Way. Ten years later, of all the numbers that speak to the fury of the Cedar Fire - 273,246 acres burned, 2,232 homes destroyed - the one that jolts the most is this: