Orange County Register

Anaheim Hills resident Sandra Cossio shared this dramatic story as she was evacuated from her Anaheim Hills home.

My husband, Tom, and I live on East Canyon Vista Drive in Anaheim Hills.

There was so much commotion when houses caught fire on Saturday. Police and fire trucks everywhere, neighbors driving down the hill past our house, trying to get out.

We loaded our cars with as much as we could with what little time we had and left. I cried when I drove away – not knowing if our home would survive the devastation.

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COMPLETE FIRE COVERAGE HERE »

• UPDATE: Live 2008 O.C. fires coverage
• TOPICS: Damage | Location/Resources | Heroes/Your Stories
• SAFETY: Traffic | Closures | Evacuations | Shelters
• MORE: Fire map | O.C. fire-related Twitter messages

Register staff writer Larry Welborn and his family were evacuated over the weekend as the Triangle Complex fire crept toward his family home.

Here is his account:

The blare of a policeman’s electronic loudspeaker is a loud, shrill noise, especially when the voice is telling you to evacuate.

After a night of monitoring television news reports and the Register’s Web site and watching the fire march steadily in the direction of our home on the southern edge of Chino Hills, we had finally dozed off when we first heard the call for evacuation before dawn Sunday.

We were more than a little surprised because we thought the front of the fire has passed us to the west and north. And it was a major cause for concern because our home borders open space and sits on a highly combustible eucalyptus break.

We have been through brush fire scares before in our 33 years in Chino Hills, so we had a vague plan of what we wanted to do, and we had chatted about it the night before as we watched the flames eat up Chino Hills State Park.

Had we been more sensible, of course, we would have packed up the night before. But now, after we were jolted awake by the police cruiser, there was more than a sense of urgency.

We knew there was a possibility that we would have to bolt for the door with only the clothes on our backs, or that we might have only five minutes to grab essentials. So the first thing we did was to check how imminent the threat was.

In our case, not very. I could see the orange-tinged brown smoke coming over the hills behind our house, but it was not bearing down on us. We had some time.

My wife, Annie, my daughter, Lacey, and I started to hustle.

The first thing I grabbed was an oil painting done by former Register artist Craig Pursley of me and Annie on our wedding day, then several framed photo collages of of kids, and then our passports.

Next I went for boxes of less-celebrated photos, our passports, and some clothes.

Annie got our financial records, more photos and some clothes.

Then she attacked the China cabinet and packaged collectible Hummels, family heirlooms and other keepsakes.

Lacey got out her laptop and desktop computer, and then our desktop. Then she grabbed nearly every item of clothing she owned and tossed them into her trunk. She said she thought about busting out the screen door of her bedroom so she could load faster.

The initial frenzy of loading took about 30 minutes.

Then we assessed the threat again. The scroll on TV screen kept reinforcing that the Glenmeade area of Chino Hills between Pipeline and Peyton avenues was being evacuated. That’s us.

Still, it didn’t seem too dangerous: Fire and smoke were not raining down on us.

So we looked around for what else we could grab. Quilts came off walls and more photos were found. So were some videos of the kids playing soccer.

We loaded more clothes. I retrieved an antique golf club designed by Annie’s grandfather. Lacey grabbed some of her collection of Harry Potter books.

Eventually, our three cars were loaded to the rooftops. It took about an hour from first notice to the last being crammed onto the passenger seat … much more time than most people get.

So then we, like our neighbors, looked back to the west.

The smoke was moving away from us, and so, apparently, was the fire, headed toward Diamond Bar, where the battle would continue.

Our house looked like a mini-ghost town.

O.C. Register staff writer Adam Townsend reports from Yorba Linda:

The 15-foot doorway arch was the only thing left standing of a stucco home at 22450 Mission Hills Drive in Yorba Linda.

As it framed the early-morning sun in the smoky haze, neighborhood residents wandered through the streets surveying the damage.

Fickle flames had ravaged houses, leaving the skeletons of wrought-iron window grates the only recognizable feature of some former homes.

On some driveways of the destroyed and evacuated homes were 3-inch-deep stacks of editions of The Orange County Register — the Sunday edition with “INFERNO” printed in 3-inch-tall type.

Mission Hills Drive resident Don Marble remembers the weekend fire.

“It burned right up to the wall and jumped up into the planters on the patio,” said Marble this morning.

“We grabbed what we could and then got out,” said his wife, Renate Marble. “These other houses were starting to burn as we left.”

“My daughter called 911, because there was nobody here when we left.”

As a firefighter approached the couple, Renate Marble asked, “Do you know who saved our house? I want to thank them.”

Others weren’t so lucky.

Armando Cerda of West Hills rushed into town after he got a call from paramedics that his father had been sent to the hospital.

The 77-year-old Mission Hills Drive resident suffered a stroke last year and was carried from his home during the fire this weekend and treated for smoke inhalation.

“Unbelievable,” Cerda said as he snapped photos of the scorched shells of his father’s neighbors’ homes.

“It was all scorched around his house, but his never burned.”

Cerda said he found out last night that there won’t be electrical service in the neighborhood for about a week — the wildfire torched a transformer at the end of the road.

An order to boil tap water is still in place for parts of Yorba Linda.

Security has also started letting residents back into the Cascade Apartments on Whitewater Drive, a complex that saw several buildings gutted by fire.

COMPLETE FIRE COVERAGE HERE »

• UPDATE: Live 2008 O.C. fires coverage
• TOPICS: Damage | Location/Resources | Heroes/Your Stories
• SAFETY: Traffic | Closures | Evacuations | Shelters
• MORE: Fire map | O.C. fire-related Twitter messages