Residents Returning To Bonny Doon Homes

The Worst Seems To Be Over

Laurie Smith, a volunteer firefighter, was battling to save a neighbor's house in this hillside Santa Cruz County hamlet when she saw the blaze had leaped over the street - toward her home.

"I assumed our house was gone," Smith said Friday, standing in her driveway with her husband, Steve Pratt. "When I got back later that night, I was shocked to find it standing. It's like a gift."

Fire had snaked up a hillside gully toward their Martin Road home, but Smith and Pratt were among the lucky ones. Their home was untouched by the 600-acre Martin Fire, which had been tamped down enough Friday to allow hundreds of evacuees to return home.

There was still a risk that the fire could spread along its eastern edge, but firefighters were optimistic that the worst was over. The blaze has destroyed at least 10 structures since it began Wednesday afternoon, but fire officials did not have a breakdown of the types of buildings burned.

At least several homes on Martin Road did not make it, however. They bore the initial brunt of the flames that roared down from an area known as the Moon Rocks in a state-run ecological reserve.

One was a rental home that Dave Jessen owned and remained behind to protect, along with his own home and a second rental house on the property.

Floating embers ignited the rental home, said Jessen, who battled the blaze with hoses and a home hydrant system linked to a water tank. The young couple who rented the place had fled to safety and saw their home go up in flames on TV.

"He watched his house burn on the news," Jessen said as he leaned on a shovel and looked at what was left of the house - a brick chimney and a gray square of fine ash marked with unidentifiable lumps.

"We were able to get in and get all the personal items," Jessen said, "except the motorcycle."

That stood nearby, a melted hunk of blackened metal and pooled rubber.

On the ground, a melted hose lay next to a tattered but unburnt copy of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Gambler."

"We would have lost it all if I had not stayed," Jessen said. "Guaranteed."

In the fire's aftermath, a large swath along Martin Road had a netherworld quality - the ground a latticework of ashes under blackened, skeletal trees. The quiet was broken only by the rumble of fire trucks doing mop-up and the sounds of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. crews fixing power lines and helicopters ferrying water to the remaining fire crews.

Hundreds of the roughly 1,700 residents ordered to evacuate since the fire began were allowed to return Friday to homes outside the burn area. But that didn't include Martin Road, where some residents were able to slip in or simply never left.

Fire investigators are trying to determine the cause of the blaze, which officially stood at 25 percent contained Friday.

Both Smith and Jessen said other area residents had told them a neighbor on Martin Road saw a youth hurrying down from the Moon Rocks and ask how to get out of the area shortly before the blaze was seen.

The rocks, massive sandstone formations, are a popular spot with students and others, who sometimes light campfires, residents said.

"It's a gorgeous vantage point," said Trisha Proffitt, who lives nearby. "People go up there and start warming fires. That's happened since as long as it's existed."

Jessen, who has lived on his property for more than 25 years, said he's spotted campfires in the rocks at night and gone to tell revelers to extinguish them.

"Anything as simple as a flicked cigarette butt can start a fire," said John Mason, who lives in Jessen's second rental home. "It's one of these situations where 99.9 percent of the people are really responsible and great. But then you get one person who makes a mistake."

Source: SFGate News