SAN FRANCISCO – All Don Magee could see was darkness when he looked outside his office on the Pala Band of Mission Indians reservation Oct. 24.
The sky above the reservation 55 miles northeast of San Diego was covered in a thick fog, and ashes were ”falling all over,” said Magee, the tribe’s housing director.
”You can’t see the sun,” he said by telephone.
The wildfires roaring across southern California have burned more than 17,200 acres of land on the Yuina, Rincon, La Jolla, San Pasqual and Pala reservations, said Jim Fletcher, superintendent for the BIA in southern California.
Another 8,960 acres have burned on the Capitan Grande, Mesa Grande, Santa Ysabel, Barona, Jamul and Inaja-Cosmit reservations.
Fletcher called a meeting with tribes and federal officials Oct. 30 to assess the damage and coordinate the relief effort.
”Mesa Grande is a poor tribe and La Jolla does not have gaming operations,” he said. ”Those folks need a lot of help.”
Across San Diego County, gaming tribes are continuing to assist those whose reservations are being devastated by wildfires.
The fires have caused at least $1 billion in damage in San Diego County alone and have led to the largest evacuation in state history. At least 500,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, including thousands of tribal members.
More than 1,400 homes have been destroyed in the 18 fires raging in seven counties, according to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
At least 41 homes on the La Jolla reservation have burned along with 65 on the Rincon reservation and five on the Yuina reservation, Fletcher said. To the southeast, a fire swept through a 900-acre parcel where the Mesa Grande tribe keeps a herd of 45 bison.
The bison are now loose, Fletcher said, but tribal members must remain evacuated. The Jamul Indian Village and the San Pasqual casino have also been evacuated.
Fires melted water lines on the La Jolla reservation, causing water mains to burst. A well was lost and the tribe is working to have the reservation declared a disaster area, according to the Native American Environmental Protection Coalition.
The lack of water was also an issue on the reservation of the Campo Band of Kumeyaay Indians, 60 miles east of San Diego. Nearby fires have led to power outages that have disrupted the electrical power pumps, said tribal administrator Lisa Gover.
Less violent winds offered some hope to the more than 8,800 firefighters Oct. 24, but more homes remained on the path of the fast-moving fires driven by furious Santa Ana winds across drought-stricken lands, burning more than 426,000 acres.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services attributed at least one death to the wildfires, while some news reports placed the number at five. State officials continued to order mandatory evacuations Oct. 24.
More than 50 shelters statewide were housing more than 22,000 people. Thousands have streamed into San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, which is being praised in comparison to the conditions of shelters set up at the Louisiana Superdome and Houston’s Astrodome during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
President Bush has signed a major disaster declaration for California that will provide long-term federal recovery programs to assist state and local governments, families, individuals and nonprofit organizations.
Meanwhile, gaming tribes are housing tribal evacuees and donating food, supplies and funding for emergency response crews.
On the morning of Oct. 23, evacuees being housed at the Pala hotel were evacuated once again, along with about 400 Pala tribal members, to homes of relatives and free hotel rooms and RV spaces offered by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in nearby Temecula.
The Pechanga are providing hotel rooms for about 250 tribal members from the La Jolla, Mesa Grande, Santa Ysabel, Pala and Pauma bands, said Jacob Mejia, public affairs director for the Pechanga Development Corp.
The 522-room hotel is now full, so the American Red Cross has provided cots, he said. Council members purchased clothing and toiletries for people who left their homes quickly without any belongings, and the tribe provided free meals to evacuees.
”It’s really bad out here,” Mejia said. ”We’re doing everything we can for people who come this way.”
The tribe assisted in similar efforts during the Cedar Fire in October 2003, known as the worst California wildfire of the past decade. It killed 15 people and burned nearly 300,000 acres in San Diego County.
Rumors of destroyed homes from the current wildfires are worrying evacuees, but fire officials in north San Diego Country have yet to prepare a list of homes affected, Mejia said.
”We’re cautiously optimistic that the winds are going down, but it raises other risks because that creates the opportunity for the fire to change directions,” he said.
The Santa Ana winds begin in eastern deserts and whip quickly over mountains and through canyons to reach southern California communities.
The summer fire season lasts through October, though officials consider the season to be almost year-round in southern California because of continuous droughts.
Don Hankins, a geography professor at California State University at Chico and a member of the Miwok Tribe, says the problem could be alleviated with a return to traditional burning techniques to clear brush.
”Prior to the curtailment of Native burning, there weren’t these large fires that consume hundreds of thousands of acres in one fire,” he said. ”They were frequently quite patchy and ranged in scale from an individual plant to perhaps a few thousand acres.”
As wildfires continue to rage, Sonny Skyhawk, a member of the Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota who lives in Pasadena, is helping to coordinate relief efforts there on behalf of the Oneida Indian Nation in New York. (The OIN owns Four Directions Media, parent company of Indian Country Today.)
He said 60 rooms have also been offered by hotels owned by the Agua Caliente and the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians.
Another gaming tribe, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, previously contributed more than $1 million to the American Red Cross and is now funding two Red Cross emergency response vehicles, said tribal spokesman Waltona Manion.
The reservation was not affected by wildfires, but some tribal members who live outside remain worried about their homes.
Tribal member Emeline Laiwa said her 19-year-old nephew had to evacuate a home he recently purchased for $1 million in Alpine, about 30 miles northwest of San Diego.
”He said, ‘I left my sprinkler on and my hose running,”’ she said. ”We’re keeping our fingers crossed; we’re just praying for him.”
For more information on the wildfires or how to help:
* The San Diego Foundation’s emergency fire relief fund for tribes: www.sdfoundation.org/fire2007
* American Red Cross: www.redcross.org
* Map of federally recognized California tribes: www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/ca/california.html
* Southern California Fire Report: www.calfires.com