Wildfires char Golden State

AUBURN — The fire swept down on the neighborhood with such speed that Laurie Kendall didn't even have time to put on shoes.

She fled her home in a suburban-style neighborhood in the Placer foothills just ahead of the flames that would wipe out the house she had lived in for the past three years and about 50 others.

Kendall and many of her neighbors had only minutes to flee as the wind-driven grass fire that began Sunday afternoon sent embers from rooftop to rooftop, igniting homes one after another.

"I lived on five acres, and I was always terrified of fires," Kendall, 63, said Monday outside an animal shelter while looking for Scoobie, her 15-year-old tabby cat. "Now here I am in my nice little suburban house, and I'm burned out."

She left with just the clothes she had on — shorts and a tank top. The rocking chair and china set she inherited from her mother, family photographs and more than 500 books were burned to ashes.

"It was just too fast," she said.

The neighborhood in Auburn seems the most unlikely of places for a devastating fire — a suburban setting bordered by a busy highway, a shopping center anchored by a Target and a strip of local businesses.

Some homeowners never expected to worry about wildfires. In an instant, their sense of living safely within city limits was changed forever.

"I always felt really complacent living in this subdivision — thinking fire will never get here. It's so green," said Doug Healing, whose home survived the blaze. "There's just no guarantee."

Scanning the charred remains of his neighbors' houses, Healing, 47, said he now feels vulnerable. All but a few of the homes on his side of the street were still standing, but all that remained of the houses on the other side were smoldering foundations.

The fire was the most destructive in California since lightning sparked a series of fires that destroyed 106 homes in June 2008 in Butte County, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The fire had burned 340 acres, or about half a square mile, and was 70 percent contained Monday evening, Berlant said. Residents were told they could return to their homes after 7 p.m.

Fire officials probably would not be able to pinpoint a cause for another week or so, said Bill Mendonca, a state battalion chief and the lead investigator. He said they had not excluded any possibilities.

Brian Swanson, a spokesman for Pacific, Gas & Electric Co., said he understood that downed power lines were part of the fire investigation. The utility will have to replace 18 power poles, he said.

At one point, PG&E cut service to some 3,700 customers to protect firefighters, but only about 250 remained without power by late Monday afternoon.

The fire was fueled by hot winds and dry grass, burning the first building within minutes after a passer-by reported it shortly before 2:30 p.m. Sunday, said Jeff Brand, the fire incident commander. It reached the subdivision within 25 minutes, leaving little time for residents to evacuate, he said.

"It's a prime example of how quickly a fire can develop and destroy acreage and homes," said Randy Smith, a deputy chief of operations for the Cal Fire.

Ken Skogen, a Placer County Sheriff's deputy who helped evacuate residents, said the embers were raining on rooftops throughout the subdivision.

"I kept trying to race in front of it," he said. "By the time you say, 'You need to get out now,' the fire was already on the home."

Skogen won praise Monday from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after he learned the deputy had rescued an elderly woman from her burning home the day before.

The fire also wiped out or damaged several businesses in an area that also serves as a busy commercial corridor. Among them was a recently opened Harley-Davidson shop that was burned to the ground, although it appeared most of the motorcycles had been removed in time.

Next door to the cycle shop, the Schultz Tire Factory lost about $200,000 of its inventory of big-rig tires, but its equipment was spared when the building's automatic sprinklers kicked on.

Joyce Schultz, who owns the business with her husband, Bill, was with employees who were tearing out soggy ceiling tiles and cleaning up other water damage. The couple also lives in the area threatened by the fire, but their house survived.

"I think we have a lot to be thankful for when you look over the hill and see people lost everything," she said.