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So named from its starting date of September 4, Labor Day, the Day Wildfire burned for approximately one month, consuming over 160,000 acres of brush and forest land in three Southern California counties before being fully contained. In the evening of Saturday, September 16, while students, faculty, and staff celebrated the school’s 35th anniversary in St. Joseph’s Square outside the Commons building, Santa Ana winds from the northeast picked up noticeably, raining down ash on partygoers. Late that night, more favorable winds arose, pushing the flames northward from the campus where they remained during the following week. On Saturday morning, September 23, hot Santa Ana winds began once again to fan the flames, bringing them closer to the campus. Fire crews were quickly dispatched to set up defensive corridors and provide structure protection. The bare wood frame of the Faculty Building, now under construction, presented the most pressing concern for fire personnel, who began to regularly “water-down” the structure to make it less vulnerable to falling ash and embers. At mid-day, Dean McLean called a meeting with the students to ask them to prepare for a possible evacuation. When the recommended evacuation order was issued by the Sheriff’s Office later that night, the dean, with assistance from other members of the faculty and the student prefects, activated the College’s evacuation plan for the first time in its history. According to Dean McLean, “We had a sound evacuation plan, and when called upon to execute it, the prefects and students did an outstanding job.” All students were quickly accounted for, and a sufficient number of vehicles provided for an orderly evacuation. Students went to the Red Cross shelter set up at nearby Sacred Heart parish in Ventura; from there, most dispersed to private homes in the area. “I am especially thankful to the faculty, staff, and local alumni who pitched in to help us,” Dean McLean said. “They welcomed so many of our students into their homes in the early hours of Sunday morning; only a small percentage of students elected to remain overnight at the shelter.” During the night and the following day, firefighters continued to battle the blaze, and used bulldozers and other heavy equipment to cut fire breaks in the hills above the campus. One of the most spectacular sights that Sunday was that of a DC-10 jet aircraft on its maiden fire-fighting journey, flying at a low altitude over the mountains near the campus. Modified as an aerial tanker, this jet dropped 12,000 gallons of fire retardant over an area three quarters of a mile wide on a single pass; it made four such drops in the course of the day. These, combined with an increase in humidity and another northward shift in the winds, caused the Day Fire to alter its course, and Thomas Aquinas College was out of harm’s way. The evacuation order was lifted at 9:00 p.m., and students began to return to the campus Sunday evening and Monday. Classes resumed on Tuesday, September 26.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2006 |
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