Trial by Fire: Profiles of Survivors in Southern California
Enlace, News Report, Norma de la Vega, Translated by Peter Micek, Posted: Nov 01, 2007
Editor's Note: After last week’s devastating wildfires, Spanish-language newspaper Enlace captured harrowing accounts of fear, evacuation and survival among Latinos.
SAN DIEGO –- When he came home with a new electric saw last month, José Luis Lozada says the purchase led to an argument with his wife. "'Why are you wasting your money on that?' she asked me,” Lozada recalls. “But who could have known that this saw would save our lives?"
José Luis Lozada saved his life and his wife's life in an unexpected way.
Photos by Marcos González
Lozada and his wife’s house sits on top of a mountain in the rural area of Escondido, Calif. And no one told them to evacuate.
The couple evacuated their home when they began to suffocate from the dense smoke. It was 1:00 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 22, and they did not see a soul in the town where they live.
The road was blocked by fallen, half-burned trees. Lozada, a landscaper, asked his wife to drive while he used the saw to clear a path for the car.
"We were scared, but the survival instinct helped us," he said. The couple found refuge in a shelter at Escondido's high school.
Calmly eating lunch on Wednesday, he said he has survived two disasters. The other was the Mexico City earthquake on Sept. 19, 1985, when thousands died and his building in Colonia Roma collapsed.
Lozada lost a home there, too. "But in Mexico, the government did not help," he said. He is amazed by the generosity of Americans. "If it pays attention, the Mexican government could learn something from this country, and perhaps we could make a better Mexico."
Farmworker Lucio Camarillo was afraid he
was going to die in the fire that ravaged
Ramona and that he would never see his
family in Oaxaca again.
***
Lucio Camarillo of Ramona, Calif., watched his entire town leave in their cars and thought he would never see his family in Oaxaca, Mexico again. He felt vulnerable, he said, because he only had a bicycle. His landlord came by to help him evacuate, but did not give him time to collect his belongings. He only wanted to save his life.
As soon as he could, Camarillo says, he bought a phone card and called his children in Mexico. "I always tell them I love them," he said, "but this time I said it differently."
Bertha Martínez and her mother
Guadalupe Gómez escaped the flames
but now face an uncertain future.
***
Ana Rojas and her family escaped Ramona safely but had trouble returning home.
On Tuesday, they left the shelter in Escondido to pick up some clean clothes, but were stopped at a police checkpoint off the freeway. Police asked them for their California identification.
Rojas and her husband, both undocumented, lacked the proper I.D. and were not allowed through.
Now, Rojas' grandmother, Guadalupe Gómez, 67, worries that authorities will write them up and try to take away their cars.
***
Daniel Pérez helped Spanish-speaking
evacuees at a shelter in Escondido.
A night security guard at a mental health center, Daniel Pérez was on his way home Monday morning when he turned on the radio. He heard about the long night the county suffered, with thousands homeless from the fires, and drove toward a local school, knowing it would be a shelter. There, hundreds of immigrants who did not speak English peppered him with questions. Bilingual people like Pérez were in demand.
In an interview on a local Spanish-language television channel, Pérez asked community members to help those made homeless by the fires. In a matter of hours, he says, dozens of young people arrived at the shelter.
"Honestly, those young people astonished me!" he says. "Latinos want a voice and we are going to get it by serving the community."
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Fuego! Mexican Media Cover Border Fires
The Unseen Victims of California's Wildfires
More Fire Stories
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