Memories that still burn

Suzie Harrison

For those who endured the fire 10 years ago, the memories seem to be

permanently embedded in their minds. Artists, whose studios are

sprinkled throughout the canyon, had a variety of experiences from

worry to elation at their luck, back to worry and then to the desire

to help their neighbors and friends.

“It was frightening and we didn’t know whether our studio and our

home burnt down on our street,” Paulette Martinson said.

Martinson called her husband Ken Auster after seeing signs of fire

in the distance.

“I was at school and saw smoke,” Martinson said. “I called Ken and

drove like crazy to get to Laguna.

She said that Auster’s secretary grabbed as much as she could take

from their artist studio in the canyon, where the couple paints, and

brought it to their house on Mystic Way.

“It burnt down to the street and jumped over [the studio] and went

at an angle to Mystic Hills,” Martinson said. “So when I got to the

house we celebrated and poured a glass of champagne.”

But as Auster began hosing down their house the fire started

coming in their direction.

“The fire was right there up to the eucalyptus tree and there were

fire engines but not enough water,” Martinson said.

They left in two cars and were on Catalina Street near Thalia

Street when they remembered that their tenants’ cat was in the house.

“Ken’s heart was pounding,” Martinson said. “He drove back through

the fire, ran up the hill and got the cat. He ran down the hill got a

flat tire on his way down, cut his finger and somehow made it to Moss

Point.”

The couple were worried that the day might be the beginning of

another 10-year negative cycle for Auster. Ten years earlier he lost

everything when his partners defrauded him.

To their relief, their house was relatively unscathed as was their

studio.

She said that the most tragic thing was knowing some of their

artist friends lost everything.

Glass blower Gavin Heath has his home and studio right at Big Bend

in the canyon. Recounting what happened, he pointed to the hills

around him.

“I saw smoke coming from Strawberry Patch heading down this way,”

Heath said. “It started as little flames that I could see from a

distance and grew to about 30 feet. Within a few minutes it went down

behind the festival and to El Morro.”

He said the wind then switched directions and the fire covered the

hillside at Top of the World to Canyon Acres.

“They backlit on the ridge. If the wind was right it would have

come down here,” Heath said. “They [the fire department] did an

amazing job and saved many structures in this canyon.”

Heath had made all the necessary precautions and loaded his

animals and kids and important things and left. Later he came back to

make sure everything was safe.

“All the structures on Skyline Drive burned down,” Heath said.

“The fire was pretty much all around us.”

Tracey Moscaritolo, a metal sculptor who lives in North Laguna,

said if she had to re-live the day of the fire she would do

everything the same.

“What I would take is the animals,” Moscaritolo said. “I really

got involved in some animal rescue stuff.”

She said she took her animals and went to a friend’s house and

grabbed her landlady’s dog too. Other friends were in Long Beach and

their two dogs were in their home the Temple Hills area. They weren’t

able to get to them. Moscaritolo was in tears remembering what

happened as she looked for her friends’ dogs.

A couple of days after the fire the dogs still weren’t found,

“They told me that they would be together,” Moscaritolo said. “And

they were. I’ll never forget seeing them. I cried so much and there

was a police officer there too, a woman, and we were just sobbing.”

She said she can’t get it out of her mind that people still say

that nobody died in the fire but animals did, a lot of them and they

are like family to many.

“It was very surrealistic,” Moscaritolo said. “Helicopters were

landing on Main Beach, the skies were very strange colors. It made

you think of World War II movies and the conditions. I’ve never seen

anything like it and I hope to not see anything like it again.”