Desert Foothill Folks Join Fire Refugees

HESPERIA, Calif. (AP) -- For three days, residents of the desert foothill towns tucked against the east side of the San Bernardino Mountains watched fire refugees pouring in, filling motels and shelters or heading to the homes of friends and family.

By Wednesday, with stiff and gusty winds driving the destructive Old Fire over the mountains, hundreds of residents on the fringes of the high desert towns of Hesperia and Apple Valley were themselves told to flee.

``We have our disasters, fires, floods, earthquakes, wind damage, we have it all,'' said San Bernardino County sheriff's Lt. Vic Brimmer, who was evacuated himself on Sunday from the town of Oak Hills. ``Nobody anticipated anything like this fire.''

Brimmer had just finished briefing about 180 refugees at a well-stocked Red Cross shelter equipped to sleep 250 people at Apple Valley High School, with the wildfire about four miles of scrub-covered hills and suburban subdivisions away.

Red Cross official Larry Walker said another 500 people were being cared for at two high schools in Hesperia and at Victor Valley Community College in nearby Victorville.

Most were from the mountaintop resorts of Crestline, Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead, where authorities said flames destroyed 850 homes and 10 commercial buildings, and continued to rage.

They were being joined by Apple Valley residents like Rick Gentry, 43, who arrived at the shelter in two pickup trucks with his wife, Gail, and their two daughters, three dogs and a rabbit named Thumper.

``This is turning out to be one hell of a fire,'' Gentry said. ``I didn't think it would make it here. I thought they would stop it at Big Bear.''

Gentry has a fire hydrant in front of his home, and said he hoped firefighters could make a stand like they did in a 1999 fire that burned 63,486 acres and destroyed 14 homes.

``Fire came down the hill and firefighters stood in my front yard and stopped it,'' he said.

Joyce Cook, 61, became worried Tuesday night, when she began seeing the glow of fire on the crest line west of her home. On Wednesday, sheriff's deputies told her to evacuate. She arrived at a Hesperia High School shelter with a car full of blankets, clothes, shoes and photos of her five grown children.

``I've lived in that house 27 years,'' she said, recalling the days when Hesperia's Main Street had one store. Today, it has 62,582 residents.

``It's an old home, but it's irreplaceable,'' she said. ``All our memories are there.''

Cook's neighbor, Neil Van Zeyl, pulled his pickup truck into the next parking space.

``This worries me,'' said Van Zeyl, 60, looking toward hills obscured by smoky gloom. ``I didn't think it was that bad. But with these winds, it could take out all of Hesperia.''