Lakeside fire destroyed at least six homes and damaged two

Lakeside resident Patricia Ann said she was wrapping up a virtual doctor’s appointment when she heard her cat, Maggie, meowing at the window — something she never does.

Ann followed her cat’s gaze through the blinds and saw smoke quickly turn into flames that engulfed her next-door neighbor’s home at the Monterey Mobile Lodge on Monday.

“It was so fast,” she said.

Ann was among the many residents at the mobile home park Tuesday surveying the damage to their units.

The blaze, which may have been started by sparks from a vehicle’s catalytic converter, destroyed at least six homes and damaged two others before firefighters doused the flames.

Firefighters and inspectors remained at the site Tuesday morning putting out hot spots as inspectors methodically looked at every home within the fire’s perimeter for damage, as well as 300 feet adjacent to the perimeter.

Lakeside Fire Marshal Jeremy Davis said at least 300 homes would be inspected by day’s end.

Fire investigators with Cal Fire checked out the area where the fire began, just north of Interstate 8 near Los Coches Road. The cause is undetermined, but Davis said officials believe it may have been sparked by a malfunctioning catalytic converter, an exhaust system device.

“Nothing suspicious in nature, it was a roadside-type incident,” Davis said.

Once it started around 3 p.m., the fire was pushed east by winds and moved into the Monterey Mobile Lodge park, where it ignited several mobile homes and triggered evacuation orders and warnings. The fire charred more than 5 acres.

Nearly 200 firefighters on the ground, aided by four tankers and three helicopters making water and fire retardant drops, worked to knock down the flames. The forward rate of progress was halted around 4:30 p.m.

Five of the impacted homes were in the mobile home park, while the rest were east and south of the park and included traditional “stick-built” homes, Davis said.

Two people were injured, one who suffered burns and another who was treated for smoke inhalation. Information about their conditions was not released. No firefighters were hurt.

When the fire first broke out, Ann said, she had only a few minutes to herd her and her roommate’s cats into a crate before leaving with just the animals and the “clothes on her back.”

Her roommate, Renee Evans, was out of the house when she got the call that the neighborhood they had lived in for only a year was on fire.

She met Ann at a friend’s house for the night, where Evans slept in the car with the cats. The two returned home to find their new unit had broken windows and melted screens, but was largely spared the brunt of the damage. The neighbor’s home Ann had seen on fire burned to its foundation.

Down the street, Ron Black and his wife, Leona, had also fled their home of 28 years in a hurry. They returned Monday evening to find it largely unscathed. Their neighbor was not as fortunate, Black said.

“I told (my neighbor’s) daughter, just as we were backing out and she was walking up the street with her dog, to ‘get in the car, we’re leaving,’” Black said. “She got in the car with us … but (her mom’s) house burned down.”

The affected homes are positioned throughout the mobile home park, with damage ranging from singed patios, blackened outdoor furniture and melted skirting to total destruction.

Fire inspectors said a large eucalyptus tree that burned in the fire — which Davis said likely “helped with the ember casting” during Monday’s fire — had been a concern of a nearby resident. The tree is located in a county easement area.

During his inspections on Tuesday, Davis talked with the resident and inspected the charred tree. He said if he had been told about it earlier, he likely would have flagged it for county Public Works to keep an eye on. Now that it has been burned, it will be put on a list to be removed.

Because he didn’t see the tree before the fire, Davis was unable to say whether it was in violation of any fire codes.

“Before (the fire) was it dead, dying or diseased? That’s kind of an automatic code thing there — I could have requirements on the tree to maintain or remove the tree,” he said.

Branches must be 6 feet off the ground, he said, so that’s another factor he would have looked for.

“The last couple rainy seasons we’ve had, we had a lot of growth in our trees out here,” he said. “So with the rapid growth, we are playing catch-up in some areas.”