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These are the pictures taken from central El Cajon during the night of October 26. This fire went off for days and was
not put out until it broke the record for acres burned in a California wildfire. 280,000 acres and 1/4 of the county's brush
was blackened, I saw the burned areas a day ago near Lakeside and some shit got fucked up in this huge ass blaze. I saw it
from the start, when I was working at 711 in Lakeside on Saturday, October 25th. It was 2AM when people started to run from
the flames near Ramona and Barona Casino. An hour later, the 711 parking lot was full of evacuees from Eucalyptus Hills and
Barona as the fire spread quickly. The Santa Ana winds carried the fire down the hillsides and toward Lakeside. By 4AM the
fire was within about a mile from downtown Lakeside. I dealt with the chaos of that store in the morning and
then bailed back to El Cajon to watch the firestorm news coverage. That night is when I saw the orange glow from the flames
burning nearby Crest. At about 8PM, I went up on a hill to take the pics taken above. Later on I heard that Crest had 200
homes destroyed and Harbison Canyon was completely torched. I went to work that night in El Cajon at 711 and it was continued
chaos from the night before as the flames were still near by in East El Cajon and Santee. It was about a day later that
the winds changed directions toward the mountains. The fire ended up being put out near Julian.
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