Rhys Morgan
California State University, San Marcos Student

“The first time we noticed the fire was 2 a.m. on Monday. It was actually a smaller fire that was right next to our house. Then, when we turned the news on, there were two fires burning, the Witch fire and the Harris fire. We stayed up all night watching the hill line by our school burn. It burned all the way down to the dorm rooms. It didn’t burn them, but it got really close.

Around 4 a.m. that day, one of the other fraternity houses was evacuated and they came to our house. There were six people and about five people came from another house.

Around 5:30 a.m. it had gone from two fires to eight fires—fires in Coronado Hills, Escondido, Ramona, Palomar Mountain, Rancho Santa Fe, Chula Vista, Fallbrook and El Cajon.

The Witch fire is next to us. Right now it’s 164 acres, one percent contained, and 500 homes have been destroyed, 200 have been damaged, and over 300,000 people have been evacuated from San Diego county.

So, at around 10 a.m., everybody in the house went to get breakfast. The Ralphs and all the shopping centers were closed. Our local deli was open so we went there and that’s where I took the pictures. It was dark out in the middle of the day. It was crazy.

In the early afternoon, it got worse and worse. There was smoke everywhere. In the late afternoon, it started to ease up a bit and the smoke got a little clearer. It was easier to breathe, see, and move around.

We went to sleep around 3 a.m. It was all right then; the smoke wasn’t too bad.

We woke up this morning and our whole house is covered in smoke now. Where we are is right in the middle of five fires, but we’re far enough away that it’s not burning our house.

Waves of smoke keep blowing by. It is gray and black outside. It looks like the movie–’Dawn of the Dead.’

Now we have 15 evacuated people in the house—from Escondido, El Cajon and Rancho Santa Fe. Nobody can return for at least 24 hours minimum. The one house in Escondido overlooks Lake Hodges and the fire is right there. They don’t even know if their house is burned or not. On TV there’s too much smoke to see.

Yesterday, we started to get cabin fever—we had been inside for over 48 hours. We were watching TV all day. Last night we decided to turn off the TV and played some board games. So, I feel a little better; but outside, I still can’t even see the mountains that are touching my house. There’s zero visibility. It hurts to breathe outside. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”