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Fire in San Bernardino California, in the City of Grand Terrace was apparently started by legal fireworks, two teens are being looked for in connection with the fire. The evacuation of homes, and area burnt not changed from other reports.
Channel 9 reports on the 2:00 News July 7, 2006
Fire Started in Grand Terrace with most likely a Safe and Sane Firework, two teen boys are being sought. Also reported was the fact that the City is one of the few places to allow the sale and use of Fireworks. The fire burned up over Blue Mt. And down to threaten residential homes and ranches in Reche Canyon.
Fire is 90 % contained. No homes Damaged. Over 400 acres Burned, Cost of Fire Crews and Sheltering Residents and Animals yet to be determined.
High Fire Alert for all of the Southland Continues.
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Flames threaten
450 acres burn, 200 homes evacuated
Gina Tenorio, Staff Writer
Two boys playing with fireworks near dry brush may have sparked a fire Thursday on Blue Mountain that burned 450 acres and forced the evacuation of 200 homes.
The blaze was sparked about 3 p.m. at Pico Street and Blue Mountain Court in Grand Terrace. Winds and heat helped drive the flames east into Colton toward hundreds of homes.
The boys were seen in the area around the time the Pico Fire started, said Tracey Martinez, San Bernardino County fire spokeswoman. Officials suspect the two were playing with a Piccolo Pete.
The boys were described as 5-foot-1, 130-pound teens with short blond hair cut in a military style. One wore oversized shorts, the other dark blue or black shorts, Martinez said. Neither was wearing a shirt.
Anyone with information is asked to call San Bernardino County fire investigators at (909) 356-3805.
By late Thursday, no homes had been damaged but hundreds of residents in the Reche Canyon Mobile Home Estates were evacuated. Officials had planned to allow them back into their homes by 9 p.m.
Anxious to save his small metal home, Tony DeFrancesco, 53, hosed down his roof, tiny yard and driveway.
"I'm just trying to save what I have," DeFrancesco said. "It's all I've got."
He and his wife, Donna, also 53, watched as the sun set and the flames on the mountainside became more visible. DeFrancesco watered for several minutes until Colton police officers asked him to stop to conserve water pressure for the fire crews.
Residents on Wild Canyon Drive off John Matich Drive in Colton watched nervously as flames approached their homes.
"Drop" Barbara Ortiz called out to an aircraft that swooped through her neighborhood.
Fire crews had been in the neighborhood for several hours watching smoke. After 6 p.m., flames began to lick at Ortiz's and her neighbors' back yards.
They surrounded a green water tower just above the homes and headed into back yards.
"You think they would have (told) me to take some things out," Ortiz said of the firefighters, her voice wavering.
She and her husband, Albert, watched as the flames surrounded a gazebo the couple built behind their home. The fire appeared so close, that Barbara Ortiz at one point declared the gazebo destroyed.
But it survived.
"We've been here for 13 years and this is about the third fire," Albert Ortiz said. "But you see what people need to do is come up here when this isn't going on. We have deer and rattlesnakes. At night it's so peaceful."
But there is a downside to living so close to wild land, some residents said.
Calvin Thomsen, whose home abuts the mountain h ad packed several irreplaceable things, including the family cat and a computer containing his dissertation for his and his wife's doctorate program.
"I was inside typing when I realized that it was getting darker and darker and darker," he said. "I looked outside and saw the fire department and thought, well that might explain why."
