California Wildfires

CORRALITOS, Calif. —  Calmer winds and heavy fog brought some much-needed relief Friday morning to firefighters working to rein in a wildfire that quickly consumed a dozen buildings in the Santa Cruz Mountains a day earlier.

By dawn, the blaze was 20 percent contained after scorching 3,100 acres. The fire was still growing, but not significantly, said Joe Waterman, a Cal Fire incident commander.

“Once the marine layer moves back out, activity will pick up a little bit,” Waterman said. “We have a lot of forces mobilized, and we are optimistic we’ll be able to hold it today.”

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About 1,400 residents remained under evacuation orders — more than 300 of them mandatory — while more than 900 firefighters and a swarm of tanker planes and helicopters continued dousing the area. More fire personnel were on their way, Waterman said.

No injuries have been reported from the fire, which was first reported Thursday morning. The cause remained under investigation.

The fire is in the mountain range that separates Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties — about 15 miles south of San Jose — and the rural area is dotted with homes.

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency for Santa Cruz County, allowing access to state funds. He was scheduled to attend a briefing in the area later Friday morning.

The milder morning conditions were a stark change from Thursday, when winds gusting up to 50 mph frustrated efforts to fight the blaze. Officials had estimated the fire would grow to 10,000 acres before being contained.

Rebecca Henson, 45, was woken up Thursday morning by a neighbor to smoke and ash blanketing her wood cabin in Corralitos. She quickly evacuated with her dog, resigning herself to the possibility that her home burned after they left.

“That thing’s gonna go up like a torch — it’s got wood floors, wood ceilings, everything,” Henson said as she gathered with about 75 other evacuees at a central market in another part of town. “There wasn’t an official evacuation, but we’re mountain folks and we’re pretty used to independent living. So it didn’t take too much common sense to realize this thing is close, we gotta go.”

The blaze also was swirling around Maymen Flats, a tiny community of about seven homes that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and the city of Santa Cruz.

Ian McClelland, 50, who has lived there since 1987 on his 23-acre ranch, woke up Thursday morning to an orange glow on the hillside, and he immediately let his two horses free so they would have a better chance at surviving.

“There was not an opportunity to do anything,” McClelland said. “There was no opportunity to put them in a trailer. So I just let them loose. They had a good chance that way.”

When he returned to his property for a few minutes, nothing was left except the concrete foundations. Two of his ten dogs also died in the blaze.

“I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” McClelland said, his voice shaky. Kenneth Kim, 66, stood on a ridge overlooking Maymen Flats, and peered through binoculars to see how his house was faring against the flames.

Kim initially seemed optimistic. But then the smoke cleared, giving him a better view: Smoke was coming from his home of 20 years.

“Oh, it’s gone. It’s smoldering,” Kim said. “I feel very scared, mad and … to start all over, I don’t know how.”