Family members are searching for an 89-year-old mother of four adult children who has dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren, after a fire erupted in a bed of dry brush near a mobile home park, consuming 76 structures and forcing Riverside County residents to flee.
Family members say Lois Arvickson loved her home in Villa Calimesa Mobile Home Park, but the day before at around 2 in the afternoon, Cal Fire officials say a trash truck caught on fire.
The driver dumped the burning debris on the side of Seventh Street, officials said. The embers ignited the fast-moving Sandalwood Fire, fueled by strong Santa Ana winds.
A family member called to check on the great grandmother to see if she was OK, and Arvickson said a fire was coming.
Then the line went dead.
“She loved where she lived. She loved overlooking that canyon, and that beautiful view that she had,” her daughter Judy Dorius said, as she and another family member wiped back tears. “She cherished that every day. She sat there and drank her coffee, every morning.”
Family members say they checked all the shelters to see if they could find her. They also say if she had gotten out, she would have contacted someone by now.
Riverside County Sheriff’s investigators have the grim task of searching the mobile home park for any human remains. One person had already been confirmed dead early Friday.
There are two people unaccounted for, according to authorities, and Arvickson’s family believes she falls into that category.
But they also don’t have much hope.
“We just want to know. We have to know,” Dorius said.
Authorities said in a news conference that it wasn’t clear whether the truck driver or anyone would face criminal charges in the blaze until they could complete an investigation.
By late Friday, the blaze had swept through more than 800 acres, and damaged 90 structures, while 76 were destroyed.
Though one person had died, details of that death were not released.
As the Sandalwood Fire reached 10% containment, other wildfires continued to burn in the Southern California region.
The Saddleridge Fire in the Porter Ranch area consumed some 5,700 acres, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee. A man went into cardiac arrest near that blaze, and died, but authorities did not release details on exactly what happened.
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Photo Credit: Courtesy of Family
Source: NBC Los Angeles
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