Smoker's Flip Sparked Fire?
NewsMax.com
Friday, Jan. 5, 2001

A passing motorist's tossed cigarette – caught up in a fierce Santa Ana wind – is the suspected cause of a wildfire raging east of San Diego.

According to the Associated Press:

A fire-fighting commander, Mike Conrad, said investigators believe a careless smoker on Interstate 8 started the blaze Wednesday morning near the little community of Alpine that has so far consumed 10,500 acres of dry brush, destroyed several homes and sent 650 people fleeing from theirs.

Authorities offered *no evidence that a discarded cigarette butt was what set off the blaze, but Jeff Fehlberg, a fire dispatcher, said:

"If you think about it, the concept of the cigarette being tossed out in wind blowing at 40 to 50 miles per hour, somebody was not using their head during that time."

With at least 2,000 firefighters and 220 engines from around California on the fire lines, the blaze was expected to be under control by Saturday.

Meanwhile, it had residents of the heavily populated San Diego area extremely concerned, as the hot, dry, Santa Ana wind blasting out from the desert drove the wildfire westward across mostly open countryside.

Two Indian casinos were shut down and a 12 mile stretch of the major highway between San Diego and Yuma, Ariz., was closed off for 11 hours.

One of the residences burned to the ground was the rented trailer home occupied by the four members of the Judd family – father, mother and sons, 4 and 8.

As the boys searched in the smoldering ruins – finding only a toy rifle and a partially melted toy truck – their mother said:

"We're just going to have to start over. We're happy to be alive. We're lucky to be alive."

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*Bold type added. Read original article.