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Fires continue, toll rises, danger subsides

Justin Owens, right, helps Tom Moore open a safe Thursday after returning to his home, destroyed by wildfire, in Poway, Calif. Evacuees were being allowed back into their neighborhoods.Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Tami Abdollah, Maeve Reston and Mitchell Landsberg Los Angeles Times
Justin Owens, right, helps Tom Moore open a safe Thursday after returning to his home, destroyed by wildfire, in Poway, Calif. Evacuees were being allowed back into their neighborhoods.Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

LOS ANGELES – Stubborn fires continued to rage through wilderness areas of San Diego and Orange counties Thursday, and the toll rose with the grim discovery of six more bodies of people caught in the infernos. But the danger to homes and businesses subsided and many of those affected by Southern California’s latest natural disaster began taking the first steps toward a return to normal.

On Thursday afternoon, officials said, U.S. Border Patrol agents found the charred bodies of four suspected illegal immigrants believed to have died in the Harris fire, which swept through a rugged area east of San Diego that is criss-crossed by hundreds of migrant trails.

Agents on routine patrol discovered the bodies at the bottom of a canyon north of the Mexican border town of Tecate, near an area where four illegal immigrants were rescued Sunday.

About a dozen suspected illegal immigrants burned in the Harris fire are being treated at the University of California-San Diego Regional Burn Unit. Several remain in critical condition, said Alberto Lozano, a spokesman for the Mexican Consulate in San Diego.

Earlier Thursday, two bodies were found in a burned-out home in Escondido. Using dental records, officials identified them as Victoria Katherine Fox, 55, and her husband, John Christopher Bain, 58.

The six victims raised the overall death toll from the fires to seven.

In addition, three people have died in auto accidents related to the fires, and seven evacuees in San Diego County have died. Thursday marked the second consecutive day of weather that was dramatically more favorable to firefighters, with calmer winds and higher humidity.

“This is really allowing us to make great progress and really attack those fires,” said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for CalFire, the state fire agency.

With the danger receding from most populated areas, evacuees in many places returned home.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said an evacuation shelter at Qualcomm Stadium would close at noon today. Maurice Luque, a spokesman for San Diego Fire and Rescue, said there were no areas within the city of San Diego that remained under evacuation orders.

People, Luque said, are “back in their homes. The ones that have homes to go back into.”