Editor:
To the girl in the black SUV in front of Fairway at 1 p.m. the day of the fire: I appreciate you stopping and telling me to vacate immediately as this was an arsonist who lit multiple fires and you gave me information on directions, etc.
We had an early lunch (11:30 a.m.) at the Lumber Mill and noticed people going outside and looking up. I thought they had put up a new sign and people were looking at that.
Then a fire truck or two went by. Not a lot of sirens, though. (As you know, they like blowing their horns.) We thought, “Oh, it’s a weed-whacker or lawnmower spark [starting a] little fire and the firefighters were going to snuff this out fast.”
As a Pine Cove summer resident, I knew this had happened before in early July with noticeable aircraft/sirens.
After lunch, we tooled around town ending up at the market to buy ice cream to bring home.
I was complacent until this girl told me a sick person had done this.
We drove the 3 miles from town to home to get two cats and leave. En route and afterward, we did see multiple fires going on. She told me he had lit five and I knew it was more like eight or nine. Scary.
We did not want to be home if in the middle of the night we had to leave and get trapped. What a horrible way to go; rather be safe than sorry.
We got to Banning and were one of the early ones out. So, I appreciate the girl for stopping and putting it in my head that this was bad, and then it clicked that this was a sick mofo who started multiple fires.
Walter Giacomazzi
Palm Springs/Pine Cove
That’s what we do in Idyllwild–we watch out for one another. 🙂 Glad you and yours all got out ok!